Exodus
by Lara-Van
Summary: Oh yes, I went there. The ORIGINAL plan for Volume 3, in which Peter did NOT catch the virus. Odessa is quarantined. Hiro and Ando are on Sylar's trail. Other heroes are racing to Odessa. And who's this mysterious blonde woman? Ensemble, AU
1. Outbreak part one

**A Note From Lara: The summary said it all. I was really mad that the writer's strike interrupted the original plan for Volume Three, and so I'm writing it. I know enough of Kring & Co's plan for the main plotline that I can write it (sort of) true to the plan, because we all should not have been denied what I think would have been an awesome conclusion to S2.**

**My planned pairings for this fic (although it may change as we go along) are: Paire, Hiro/Ando, and Mayinder (even though that annoyed me in the revised V3, I think it would have been good in the original version, so I'm going to be exploring it). Maybe some of these will change and definitely some will be added to the list, but that's the plan for now.**

--

_Primatech Paper_

_Odessa, Texas_

It was such a tiny sound. Just a tinkling of breaking glass, nothing more, barely audible. But to Peter Petrelli, the sound meant doomsday.

He careened into the vault, Nathan and Parkman right behind him, and skidded to a halt halfway across the small room. The three men stared down at the shattered vial on the floor. "Is that it?" Nathan asked. "Is that the virus?"

Peter didn't answer. He was too busy staring at the deadly pool in shock. _This was all his fault…_

--

In the end, it was Nathan who took charge. He always did; it was a role he felt comfortable in.

"Come on, Pete," he said, shaking his brother out of the daze he had sunk into. "The world still needs saving. You're good at that, right?" A hopeless look came into Peter's eyes, but he shrugged and followed Nathan out of the vault. He looked darkly around. The sparking circuit breaker down the hall was a reminder of what Adam had done. What _he_ had done, on Adam's orders.

As they hurried through the hallway, Parkman, ever the pragmatist, asked, "What did Adam tell you about the virus, Peter? Maybe… uh, maybe we can find some way to contain it."

The younger Petrelli frowned, trying to remember what exactly the immortal man had said. "Uh… not much. He mentioned… It's airborne, I think, but it should only spread about a mile or two out before it's concentration fades. After that, it'll continue to spread but the dose wouldn't be virulent to infect anyone."

Nathan nodded decisively. "Alright then. We might be able to stop this thing before it gets out of town. We'll have to quarantine Odessa ."

Parkman shook his head as they raced up the stairs to ground level. "Are you _crazy_? Do you know how much coordinating that would take? We'd never convince anyone of the problem in time, let alone getting anything done."

The depressive cloud that had hovered behind Peter's eyes lifted as they reached the top of the stairwell. "We'll find a way," he said firmly. "We have to." And with that, he pushed through the door and onto the floor of the main warehouse of Primatech Paper.

The first thing he saw was an unconscious man who had crashed a forklift into a wall. He hurried over to the man and pulled him gently down from his seat. "Nathan, help me!" he yelled. "I don't think he's infected, but I can't be--"

"Oh my god, he's burning up!" Parkman called from across the warehouse. A man lay slumped across a ladder, also unconscious. Nathan left Peter's side to help Parkman lift the man down. Peter hurried to them after staunching the flow of blood from the first man's forehead.

"We've got to stop this from spreading," Peter said. "If we can close off the town, it won't get past city limits."

Nathan nodded. "Okay then. We've got to get to City Hall. We need to let the authorities know what's going on, and fast." He and Parkman headed for the door, but Peter hesitated.

"What about all these people?" he asked.

Parkman shook his head. "I'm sorry Peter, but stopping the spread of the virus is more important than saving these people."

"Oh, so that's how it is, huh? Big picture problems mean that individual lives mean nothing?" Peter said angrily, stepping towards the policeman. Incensed, Parkman also moved towards the smaller man.

"Hey hey!" Nathan said, leaping between his brother and Parkman. "Look, Peter, you stay here and help these people. If you can, try to cut off the highway as well. Parkman and I will go to the police station and try to get people to listen to us."

Peter agreed, and the other men left quickly. He glanced around at the unconscious bodies scattered all across the room. "Crap," he said. Even with Niki Sanders's super-strength, he wouldn't be able to fly them all to the hospital fast enough. Fine then, the highway first. With three quick steps, he was in the air and soaring across the Texas town.

As he touched down on the highway bridge, the only real road out of Odessa, he smiled at memories of the last time he had crossed it. It had been months ago, when he had been racing the clock to save a cheerleader... The smile inverted as images of his niece filled his mind. Did she even know he was alive? Had Nathan bothered to tell her?

No, no, now was not the time for reminiscence. Peter focused. If nothing else, Adam had done _one_ good thing at least. He had showed him just how truly powerful he could be if he put his mind to it. A push here and there with his telekinesis, and...

The landslide buried the end of the bridge under twenty feet of shale and boulders. No one was getting out of the town _that_ way any time soon.

--

Peter touched down carefully out of sight outside of the Odessa City Hall. It had taken him longer than he had hoped to get all of the infected to the hospital, and he hoped the delay wouldn't cause them any extra suffering.

He strode into the police station, situated right next to City Hall, and found Nathan waiting there. "It's done," he said. "I blocked off the highway. What's going on?" He gestured to the news crews that were filtering into an adjourning conference room from all directions.

"They wouldn't listen to us. People were dying, all over town, but they didn't understand what was causing all the random car accidents and things," Nathan said. "But Parkman did... something... and now they've got news crews lined up for a press statement."

Peter nodded, trying to smile and failing.

"Hey, what is it? Are you okay?" Nathan asked, concerned.

Peter sighed. "Physically, I'm fine." "But--?" his brother prompted.

"But nothing. But _everything_. If one single person dies from this virus, it's my fault. If it weren't for me, Adam wouldn't have been able to release it."

Nathan stood up from where he had been perched on the edge of a desk, placing his hands on his little brother's shoulders. "Look, Peter, this is not your fault. Adam manipulated you; _he_ was the one that wanted this to happen. He was good at controlling people, and he twisted you into trusting him. He's the villain here, not you."

The younger Petrelli nodded, but he didn't really look like he believed it. "How about you?" Peter asked. "You don't look so hot."

Nathan smiled, wiping at the sweat beading on his forehead. "Nerves," he said unconvincingly. "I'm used to cameras and things, but this is a bigger deal than your ordinary press conference."

"Yeah," Peter said, attempting to joke. "Telling the world that a virus has been released and unless we contain it 93% of us are going to be dead within a year. Sounds like "fun" doesn't it."

His brother smiled weakly, pale-faced, and together with Parkman they made their way up to the podium that had been hastily erected at the front of the conference room. Nathan began to speak:

"Thank you for coming. Most of you don't know who I am. My name is Nathan Petrelli, and last year I was elected to the United States Congress. I called you here today under the most unfortunate of circumstances." He ran a hand through his hair, looking drained. "Several hours ago, a deadly virus was released here in Odessa, Texas. This disease is incredibly virulent, and I have called for an immediate quarantine on the entire town of Odessa." Audible gasps could be heard from several places in the crowd. "This threat seems nearly insurmountable, but I have faith that with the cooperation of the government and citizens alike, we can conquer... conquer this... this threat..."

Suddenly, it was as if Nathan's legs gave out beneath him and he collapsed to the floor.

--

_Bennet Home,_

_Costa Verde_

Claire Bennet's breath caught in absolute shock at the image on the TV screen.

It was just chance. She wouldn't even have seen the broadcast if she hadn't been wrestling with Lyle for the remote. But as the channel flicked back and forth as she tried to wrest the device from her little brother, the words 'Live from Odessa, Texas' across the bottom of the screen caught her attention. "Hey Lyle!" she'd said, "Something's being broadcast from Odessa. Wanna check it out?"

Lyle shrugged. "Sure, whatever."

Claire plopped down on the couch next to him, and turned up the volume. In surprise, she saw Nathan Petrelli's face fill the screen. "Lyle, that's my _father_!" she said. "That's my bio-dad!"

"I thought your bio-dad was that fat bald guy that came to the house last year."

An obstinate look crossed the cheerleader's face at the memory. "No. That was just some… some _guy_ dad hired to keep me from finding out who my real parents were, remember? Dad told you about what happened in New York."

"No. He really didn't tell mom and me much," Lyle pointed out.

"Well maybe if you paid attention to what he _did_ tell you--!" Claire began, her voice rising.

Sandra Bennet chose that moment to enter the living room. "Kids, behave. We've had enough upheaval in the Bennet household without you two bickering all the time." Claire settled back against the couch, seething, and looked back at the TV screen. What she saw nearly stopped her heart.

"Oh my god," she said. "Peter, you're alive."

It was impossible, inconceivable. The last time she had seen him had been from ten thousand feet below him as he exploded like another sun in the sky above New York. But there was no mistaking him, even without his long hair. Those dark eyes she knew all too well almost seemed to stare into her own through the television.

"Mom! _Mom!_" Claire screamed. "It's him! He's alive!"

"Who is, dear?" Sandra asked, so calmly it almost drove Claire wild.

With a groan of exasperation, Claire jabbed her finger at the screen. "It's _him_! It's my uncle! Peter Petrelli is alive!"

Sandra cocked her head to one side, apparently trying to dredge up what little her husband had told her about the events of four months ago, and Claire was about to explain when a sudden clamor from the TV caught her attention. She peered back at the screen and the bubble of excitement that had swelled in her chest punctured suddenly.

The camera was clearly jostling about, and people kept rushing in front of the lens, but what Claire _could_ see chilled her right to her very bones. Her bio-dad, Nathan, was lying on the floor of the conference room at the Odessa police station (a room she'd become rather familiar with after homecoming last year), apparently unconscious. Peter knelt beside his big brother, shaking him slightly.

The broadcast cut out abruptly, to show a reporter in another location. Claire didn't pause to listen to what the primped woman had to say, but instead rushed to the computer in what had been her father's office. "I have to find out what's happening!" she murmured to herself.

Quickly, she ran a Google search through, pulled up an online news source, and scanned through the hastily-typed article.

"Oh my god!" Claire whispered as the full weight of the events going on in her hometown crashed over her.

Sandra placed her hands on her daughter's shoulders. "What is it?" she asked.

"Back in Odessa, there's some kind of… outbreak. A virus that's already infected most of the town. This says that my father just came down with it. The town's quarantined, and…" Claire didn't finish her statement. She didn't want to. Voicing it aloud would make it real. Peter was in Odessa. _Trapped_ in Odessa, along with a deadly virus that might kill even him…

--

_Company Offices_

_Costa Verde_

Noah Bennet was pacing. It was a tough bargain Bishop had driven, he had to give the man that much. He came back to work for the Company- under proper "supervision", of course- and Claire dropped her investigation. In return Sandra, Lyle, and Claire would be left alone.

"Whatcha doin' Glasses?"

Bennet pulled off the referenced frames and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He would do whatever it took to protect Claire, but did he really have to do it while working with _her_? He glanced across the office at the girl in the armchair beside the fireplace.

Twirling her blonde hair around her fingers, Elle sat leaning against one arm of the chair with her legs draped across the other. Seeing his irritated gaze, she winked at him and blew a huge bubble of pink gum.

Noah rolled his eyes. "Elle. I though you were in the doghouse. Why are you assigned as my partner?"

"Daddy thought I'd be the best one to keep you on a short leash," she said, examining her nail beds. Out of the corner of her eye, she shot Bennet an impish smile and bounced a tiny spark across her fingers.

Bennet dropped into the chair behind Bishop's heavy oak desk. "Fabulous," he muttered. "Just bloody fabulous."

--

_The Bennet Home_

_Costa Verde_

Claire lay on her bed, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark moon she had stuck to her ceiling and thinking. Sunlight streamed through the windows and her blonde curls, splayed across the covers, reflected the light into her eyes. She blinked.

She was alone in the house. Lyle was spending the afternoon with friends. Sandra was using a payphone to make discreet calls to all her friends in Odessa. And Claire was conflicted.

Six months ago, she would have simply stayed right where she was and worried. She would have stayed safely in Costa Verde, far away from Texas and all the troubles in Odessa. But then, last fall at Homecoming, Peter had come crashing into her life and changed everything. And now, Claire wasn't sure that what she _would_ have done was what she _should_ do.

Her blood could cure people. She had seen with her own eyes that her blood could revive people from the dead, for God's sake! Maybe she could help cure this virus. And… Peter needed her. She wasn't sure how she knew, but she was certain that he needed her help.

The front door creaked, and Claire hurried downstairs, expecting to see her mother. "Mom? Did you talk to anyone in… Odessa…" Her voice trailed away as she saw a tall, dark-haired man standing in the doorway instead of Sandra.

"Sylar."

--

**Ooh, ominous! I'm starting out, as it always was, with Claire and Peter. Whatever anyone says, no matter who personal favorite characters are, no one can deny that the show's four main characters are Sylar, Peter, Claire, and Hiro (listed in order of probable importance). I'll be branching out into other storylines in coming chapters.**

**For now, review!**


	2. Outbreak part two

**A Note From Lara: Here it is! Part two of Chapter One of Exodus! I just realized, I ought to let you know that the Hiro/Ando will only be implied. I'm terrible at writing slash. (And if you have any pairings to suggest, aside from those I mentioned last post, by all means mention it)**

**And for the sake of timing making sense, let's assume that events in New Orleans happened a few days before what went down in Odessa. (Hey, it's a smaller plothole than some of the ones the actual Heroes writers leave hanging around)**

--

_Branek Memorial Hospital_

_Odessa, Texas_

Nathan was stable, they said, and awake. Apparently the virus was loosely related to the flu, so the doctors were able to do that much, at least. And yet they wouldn't let Peter in to see him.

"Why can't I just go in?" he demanded of the doctor assigned to his brother.

The older man sighed. "We can't allow you to be exposed and risk spreading the infection," he said. "There are enough sick already."

Peter shook his head. "Everyone in this whole town has been exposed. I was in the room when the virus was released. It's not going to make much difference now if I go in there, is it?"

The doctor smiled sadly. "I know son. You have to understand, it's standard procedure for situations like this."

"I know that. I'm a nurse at Saint Mary's hospital in New York. I understand outbreak protocol. Please. Nathan might be dying. Just… let me see my brother."

Something in Peter's face reached the other man. "Alright," he said finally. "I'll try to arrange something as soon as possible. Come back here tonight, late, okay?"

"Thank you," Peter said. He offered the man his hand. "Peter Petrelli, by the way."

"John Hardburn," the doctor said, smiling grimly.

--

_Bennet Home_

_Costa Verde_

_This can't be happening this can't be happening this can't be happening this can't be happening this can't be happening this can't be happening_…

Claire stumbled backwards, backing away from the dark figure before her. "You-- you're dead!" she whispered.

"Not quite," he said. "Just stripped of most of my powers. I've lost all but my favorite. But I have a _new_ favorite in mind…" Sylar raised his finger, pointing at her skull. Claire knew what came next, she'd seen it several times before. First Jacky, then Ted…

Spinning on her heel, she fled through the house. Up the stairs as quickly as she could go, with no real plan in mind. Twice, she had come face-to-face with Sylar, and twice Peter had intervened. But Peter was in Odessa now, and she was sure he wasn't going to leave and risk spreading the virus to save her this time. She was on her own.

She reached her bedroom, staring around in uncertainty. Slow, steady footsteps behind her on the stairs told her that she had been pursued. "God no," she whispered. But now Claire was trapped. She couldn't go back the way she'd come, and there was nowhere else to go from here. Maybe she could hide in the closet, but that wouldn't fool him for long…

And then Claire's time ran out. Sylar entered the room, smiling slightly in a twisted, serial-killer kind of way. An invisible push, and Claire flew back onto the bed. For a moment, she was reminded strangely and horribly of Brody, and what he had tried to do to her. But the resemblance to past events ended quickly as Sylar knelt behind her head, pinning her down with telekinesis. Tears ran down her face as she struggled uselessly against iron bonds. "Don't," she whispered. Sylar raised his free hand and pointed at her forehead.

"Now, let's have a look at that pretty brain of yours."

Acting of its own volition, Claire's mouth spat out, "Whatever you say, Dr. Mengela." She had nothing but words for her resistance now, but she would use that to her advantage any way she could.

But presently, even that was robbed from her. The telekinetic knife cut deep, and Claire screamed as her skull was rent apart. God, she had shattered every bone in her body, burned alive, drowned, but _nothing_ hurt like this did.

And then... the pain stopped. As if someone had thrown water on the fire in her head. She opened her eyes and found Sylar leaning over her, looking down at her.

"What happens now?" she hissed. "You gonna eat my brain?"

The killer's eyes widened. "Claire, that's disgusting!" His mouth wrenched upard in an approximation of a smile. "Still alive, even with the skull removed. And the bones _already_ growing back, too. Guess I have to work fast, then."

She couldn't feel his fingers across her brain- no nerve endings, as he pointed out as he worked- but she knew he must be in there, violating the most sacred part of herself. Tears coursed down her face, and she heard a wet sucking sound that she couldn't identify. The world went briefly black...

When she swam back to consciousness a few moments later, she felt a slight squelch, and then nothing at all. It wasn't like the numbness of paralysis. She could still feel the soft rub of her clothing, the motion of her limbs. No, this was something else entirely. She sat up and realized that in the seconds she'd blacked out, Sylar had disappeared.

She stood up and peered into the mirror over her chest of drawers. The sight of a blood-stained face was not a new image for her, but today was different. Once again, she began to cry, sitting down on the floor and leaning up against the bed, clutching a bloody pillow to her chest and shaking.

It took a several minutes for Claire to pull herself together. She stood up, a little unsteady on her feet. For what felt like the thousandth time that day, she wished for Peter. The empath she had only known for such a short time was the only person who made this whole crazy world she'd been dropped into make sense.

Walking into the bathroom, she searched through the cabinet until she found what she was looking for- the straight razor her father used to shave. Unsure why she needed this test, she placed the blade against her skin, took a deep breath, and sliced the blade through her flesh.

There was no pain. Not even a whisper of pain. The skin healed, as it always did, and she could certainly _feel_ the cut of the knife, but it didn't _hurt_. What had that sonofabitch done to her?

--

Micah Sanders glanced up at his cousin Monica. She was smiling at him, but he could see the tension in her eyes. "Are you sure about this?" she asked. "Not that I don't want to do this, but I'm not entirely sure _she_ does." Monica gestured at the closed door across the hall from the living room.

"She'll help," Micah said confidently. "She knows we're right."

Monica shrugged. "Alright. I just hope you know what you're doing."

He grinned at her, his tousled black curls falling over his eyes. "I've been practicing my power," he said. "I know _exactly_ what I'm doing. And I learned a few new tricks, too."

The young woman glanced at the door. "I think what's sitting in the driveway is a little more than a new trick, Micah." He shrugged and gave her an innocent look. She laughed, long and hard. It was the first time either of them had felt so elated since the explosion a few days before.

--

Hiro Nakamura threw his pen across his desk, sighing in frustration. "What is it?" Ando asked him anxiously.

Pouting like a child, Hiro leaned back in his chair. "I'm _bored_," the time-traveler complained. "We saved the world. Twice. _And _avenged the death of my father! Now what? Back to the same old desk, doing the same old job?"

Ando shrugged. "What else does a hero do when the job's been done?"

Hiro frowned, then a smile crossed his face. "I have an idea," he said. "We have lots of new friends in the United States. Would you like to go for a visit?"

The other man sighed, rolling his eyes. "We _just_ got back. Or, you did anyway. And we have a job to do _here_. No glory, no saving the world, just work. Like every other person on the planet."

"But... but Ando, when I took Kensei away from Odessa, Peter Petrelli and Matt Parkman were arguing over a... a virus. Peter told me the virus was going to be released, he saw it in the future! What if it really happened?" Hiro insisted. "We should go back and make sure all is well. And you could visit your stripper friend."

"Niki is not my 'stripper friend'!" Ando muttered, rolling his chair deeper into his cubicle, out of Hiro's line of sight.

The bespectacled man peeped over the dividing wall separating their cubicles. "Please, Ando?"

"Yes, I'm sure they'll be _happy_ to give us our jobs back once we disappear for another few months." Hiro just looked at him sadly, only the top half of his face showing over the wall. Ando sighed. He couldn't resist that face. "Fine," he said. "But if I lose my job, it's your fault."

Smiling happily, Hiro dove around the corner, seized his sword, and darted into Ando's cubicle. A fractured second later, the two office "drones" had vanished.

--

Claire positioned herself in the middle of the tracks, standing there, waiting. A coal train came through here every afternoon at precisely four o'clock... two minutes from now. As usual when she tested out her abilities this way, she had no real idea why she was doing it. But there was a numbness in her mind that came with this lack of pain that scared her. She wanted to feel. Feel _anything_, so long as it hurt. She had put on her cheerleading uniform. She didn't know why. Maybe it was just a reminder of when she had first discovered her power.

The engine rounded the bend right on schedule, and Claire spread her arms, bracing herself for the impact.

Therefore, she didn't see the woman. Long blonde hair danced past her shoulders, and her green-hazel eyes were concealed behind a violet mask. She was dressed in street clothes- a denim jacket, purple tank top, and jeans. Only the mask distinguished her from any other woman on the planet. But at that moment, she was pelting toward the tracks at amazing speeds.

Claire had only inches before the train smashed into her when she felt the push. Another body colliding with her own, smashing her out of the way. The wind of the locomotive's speed as she passed just inches from the engine. The crash of her body hitting the ground, one of her ribs snapping and stabbing through her skin- painless.

She opened her eyes. "What the hell?" she asked. The woman was already on her feet, and she offered a hand to Claire to help her up. The cheerleader accepted her assistance, and staggered to her feet. The woman looked to be about thirty, and a look of horror crossed her face as she saw the rib poking through the blue material of Claire's uniform.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" she asked.

Claire shrugged. "Sure. Doesn't hurt." She pushed the rib back inside her body, feeling the click as it healed.

The woman's eyes widened. "So _that's_ why they wanted me to save you."

"What?"

Silvery laughter. "It's a long story. Some guy told me 'save the cheerleader, save the world.' Then he told me where to find you, and when. I just did what he said."

"Who are you?" Claire asked. The woman felt ever so faintly familiar, and the mask prevented her from determining who it was. "How did you push me out of the way?"

Behind the mask, eyes smiled sadly at her. "How did you snap your rib back in place? I'm just... trying to help."

"That's not what I asked."

"I know."

And then she was gone, running back across the field the way she had come. Claire spotted a black car parked far down the road, and watched as the woman threw herself into the driver's side. The vehicle sped away.

--

**Another Note From Lara: Ooh! Who is the woman? What are Micah and Monica up to, and who are they working with? Where have Hiro and Ando gone? All this and more will be answered in the final update that completes 'Outbreak'. Well, not really. I'm going to draw out the mystery of the first two questions quite a bit longer than that. I just like messing with you.**

**Reviews, anybody?**


	3. Outbreak part three

**A Note From Lara: I am _really_ feeling this story! Do you ever have that happen, where a story you're writing just takes over your brain and eats up your whole life until you can't think of anything else? It doesn't usually happen to me with fan fiction, mostly just my novels, but this one and the Dianne Saga are drawing me in big time! **

--

_City Hall_

_Odessa, Texas_

Peter was on the verge of simply flying straight up into the sky with frustration. Since Nathan's collapse, it seemed like the whole town had seen fit to turn to the two people in his entourage for guidance. Namely, himself and Parkman.

He had some medical training, sure, and Parkman was a cop. They were both used to dealing with emergencies. But they didn't know how to deal with this any more than Odessa's regular authorities. What was it that drew everyone, from frightened mothers to the mayor himself, to them?

As a matter of fact, it was the mayor that Peter was talking to at this exact minute. Mr. Drey was a short, heavyset man, with wire spectacles perched on the edge of his nose. "But what I don't understand, Mr. Petrelli," he said, "is how this happened in the first place. Why was such a dangerous virus being stored in a paper factory? What do you and your brother have to do with this at all?"

"It's a very long story, Mr. Drey," Peter said, rubbing his eyes. "And please, call me Peter."

Drey smiled tiredly. "Alright then. Peter, we have more than enough time for you to tell me exactly what, exactly, is happening in my city."

Peter deliberated. It only took him moments to reach his decision, but he didn't know, even as he spoke, if he was doing the right thing. "Do I have your complete confidence?" he asked. The mayor nodded. "Alright. Is there somewhere we can speak in private?" Drey pointed to a small conference room door. They entered quickly, and Peter pulled the door shut behind him.

Before beginning his tale, he pleaded for the man's silence. "Mr. Drey, please, this is very important. Promise me you won't tell this to anyone." A nod. "Okay. Well, I guess it all began last October. That's where _my_ story starts, anyway. And I don't think you can really understand what happened this morning without knowing that..."

--

_Bennet Home_

_Costa Verde_

When Claire arrived at home, an hour later, she found her mother in a panic. Sandra was on the phone with the police department, screaming at the top of her lungs. As Claire walked in the front door, her face transformed into a look of shock. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "She just walked in." The phone beeped, and then Sandra flung herself on her daughter.

"Oh my god, sweetie, we saw the blood! What happened?"

Claire bit her lip, not really wanting to answer. "It's... it's nothing. Really. Just... just a pedicure gone horribly wrong." She smiled a little at the small reminder of West. "I was kind of mad that I cut my toe off, so I went for a walk."

Sandra gaped at her daughter for a moment, then let out a burst of slightly hysterical laughter. "Who'd have thought I'd have ever heard someone say that, let alone my own daughter?" She headed for the stairs, still muttering to herself.

Claire walked into the living room, plopping down on the couch beside Lyle, who seemed engrossed in a video game. She wasn't sure why she'd lied to her mother; maybe her father was right and old habits did die hard. But Sandra had a right to know that a crazed serial killer had been in the house, surely. Why didn't she just go upstairs right now and help her mother with the bloody sheets and tell her the truth? Claire knew the answer before she'd even considered it. Noah Bennet was right about another thing: people like her shouldn't have to know about people like Sylar.

"So what really happened?" asked Lyle suddenly. Claire saw that he'd turned off the video game and was watching her.

"Just what I said," she defended. "Sliced my toe off and went for a walk."

Lyle raised his eyebrows for a moment. "Yeah, because I actually buy that. What happened? You've been crying."

If she hadn't been so irritated with him, Claire might have been touched by the fact that he'd noticed. After all, it was good to know that _someone_ in this messed-up family was tracking. But she _was_ irritated, beyond the point of reasonable thought. "Fine," she hissed under her breath. "You wanna know? A serial killer who's been chasing me since October last year finally managed to catch up with me, and he sliced my head open and looked at my brain and figured out how my power works and now he's going to be indestructible too!"

Her little brother simply stared at her in surprise. "Serial killer?"

"You _can't_ tell Mom!" Claire pleaded, already regretting her irrational outburst. "She would be so scared if she knew. He got what he came for and I don't think he'll come back, but it would freak her out so much just to know Sylar came at all..."

Lyle bit his lip, thinking. "Sylar. That's the guy Dad mentioned. He was the one at homecoming. The one who killed your friend." Claire nodded. "Wow. And he's been chasing us all this time?"

The cheerleader shook her head. "Not exactly. A time-traveler stabbed him through the chest with a sword back in November. Everybody thought he was dead. Clearly, he wasn't."

Looking intrigued, Lyle started to ask more, but Claire shook her head, hearing their mother returning downstairs. "I'll tell you later, but _not _when she could hear." Lyle turned back to his game, and Claire sank back into the leather sofa.

She wondered what good she was doing anybody, staying here. As far as she knew, she was the only one who knew Sylar was still out there. And surely he had revenge in mind, as well as his sick "collecting." There were people who needed warning.

And people who needed saving, as well. Her blood could cure bullet wounds, heal them as if they'd never happened. Maybe she could be of help in Odessa as well. It was definitely an intriguing prospect...

--

_Suresh's Apartment_

_Brooklyn, NY_

Mohinder stared at the TV in shock. "Maya!" he called. "Maya, look at this!" The raven-haired woman entered the room and leaned over the back of the armchair Mohinder was sitting in. The geneticist pointed at the screen. "That's the man I was telling you about!" he exclaimed. "Peter Petrelli is alive after all!"

Maya frowned. The day before, after Gabriel- _Sylar_- had attacked them, she had asked Mohinder about these abilities he was studying, and expressed her fears about the destructiveness of her power. He had told her the story of an empath he had known, who had absorbed the ability of a radioactive man, lost control, and exploded in the sky above the city. She had pictured anyone who had that kind of power pent up in him as a hulking colossus. But the man Mohinder was indicating was quite short and slender. She rather doubted that a body that tiny could really contain that much power.

"That's Peter?" she asked dubiously. Mohinder nodded excitedly.

They watched eagerly as the news story progressed. Maya had some slight difficulty understanding- her English wasn't perfect, and the newscaster was speaking very quickly- so Mohinder gave a running commentary for her benefit.

"They're saying that the town where this is being broadcast from- Odessa, Texas, I think- is the site of an outbreak of..." As the broadcast continued, Mohinder's voice trailed away and his expression sagged. "Oh my god. The Shanti virus! There must have been some stored at the Company outpost there, and... Oh no."

The pair stared at each other in growing apprehension.

--

_City Hall_

_Odessa, Texas_

Drey stared at Peter in disbelief. "So you're trying to tell me that there are all these people with... with _super powers_ out there, and you're one of them, and..." Peter nodded silently. There wasn't much that could be said in reply to that. "Young man," said the mayor, "I have never heard such a load of crap in my life."

"I'm not lying," Peter said. "Every word's true."

"Well then, you're completely nutters. I can't believe I actually bought that for a second," Drey said, laughing robustly.

Frustrated and exhausted beyond reason by the days events, Peter stood up sharply from where he had sat beside the conference room table. He raised his hand, and electricity crackled in his grasp. He raised his other hand, and a tiny self-sustaining sphere of nuclear fusion formed in his palm. Quickly, he allowed the radiation to dissipate and focused the bolt of electricity at a tasteful vase placed in the center of the table. The vase shattered, and he seized one of the sharp pieces, driving it without hesitation into the bare skin of his wrist.

Blood spurted from the wound, and as it healed, he was reminded once again of Claire. He would have to find her. Last he knew, she'd been living here, in Odessa. He'd have to make sure she was okay; she meant more to him than even he was willing to admit. She was practically his best friend, despite having known him only a few short weeks before he disappeared within the bowels of the Company.

When he looked up from his unmarked skin, wrenching his mind away from his cheerleader, Drey was staring at him in shock. "I... I..." he stuttered.

"Want to see more?" Peter asked. "What shall I do next? Break down the wall? Fly? Lift the table with just my mind? Paint the future? We're in a life-or-death situation. But this isn't about one or two lives. This is about the life of the entire human race. I've _been_ to the future, Mayor Drey. I've seen it. In less than a year, 93% of the world's population is going to be dead of this virus if we don't find a way to keep it from spreading."

The stunned mayor nodded. "Alright. I get it. I trust you. And I won't breathe a word of this to anyone." Peter smiled gratefully, and the older man rose and crossed to the door. As he exited the conference room, he seemed to have a thought and turned back. Over his shoulder, he said, "Oh, and Peter? Call me Roger."

--

_Bennet Home_

_Costa Verde_

In the end, it was Peter that decided her. Peter _needed_ her, she was absolutely sure of it. And so late that night, when the rest of the house was asleep, Claire slipped out of bed. She crossed to her closet and pulled out the carefully selected outfit. Darkwash jeans, a short-sleeved black sweater with a hood to hide her face, should she need it, and her trademark white-and-red tennis shoes.

Once she was dressed, she excavated her backpack and checked the contents one last time. Flashlight, a pen and notebook, a few changes of clothes. A handful of granola bars. Her life's savings- about eight hundred dollars- and one of her father's credit cards. And a few things she had found around the house that she more or less assumed belonged to Noah, including a taser and a small handgun. She had no idea what she was walking into, but she wanted to be prepared.

Slinging the pack over her shoulder, Claire tiptoed downstairs. But as she pulled open the front door, a voice from behind her whispered, "What the hell are you doing?" Claire glanced over her shoulder and saw Lyle standing there in his boxers, watching her. She motioned for him to be quiet. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"I'm not telling you!" she hissed. Lyle shook his head. "Yes you are." Green eye met green eye, and the siblings stared each other down.

In the end, it was Claire that gave in. Lyle had a way of being incredibly annoying and childish, but he also had one helluva death stare. "Fine," she whispered. "I'm going to Odessa. Peter needs my help."

"You mean this exploding uncle you _didn't_ tell me about?" Claire raised her eyebrows in annoyance. "Alright then," Lyle said. "But I'm coming with you."

Claire's mouth dropped open. "No! No way!" she said, nearly forgetting to keep her voice down. "My power ought to protect me from infection, but you'd be walking into a death trap if you went into Odessa."

Lyle crossed his arms and set his chin. "I'm coming with you. You never finished telling me what went down back in November, and I want to know. It's not you and Dad's job to have all the fun for the entire family, you know. Besides," he added when it looked like Claire was about to protest again, "If you don't let me come, I'll wake Mom up and _you_ won't go."

Fuming, the cheerleader said, "Fine. You can come. Go get some stuff. Clothes and money and stuff. Be back here in two minutes or I'm leaving without you."

Three minutes later, two figures dressed in black slipped out of the house and walked together down the street...

--

_Company Outpost_

_Costa Verde_

The cell was better than the ones prisoners were kept in- significantly better. The walls had been painted forest green, and the bed was more than a bare cot, at least. But there was no denying that it was still a cell.

Noah Bennet sat on the not-a-cot and tossed a pink rubber ball at the wall, caught it, and threw it again in a never-ending rhythm. A tiny blonde leaned against the badly disguised observation window, watching him entertain himself and playing with sparks. Presently, she asked irritably, "Don't you ever get tired of that?"

Peering at her ironically through his horn-rimmed glasses, Noah took a moment to reply. "No," he said, smug at yet another perceived victory.

Innocent deep blue eyes observed him for a few moments more. Then Elle grinned. "I have an idea. Why don't we go visit your family?"

Noah cocked his head, trying to see her game. "What's the catch?"

Elle bit her lip, eyes sparkling with excitement. "No catch. Well... after we go see Claire-bear, we get to do what _I_ want to do. Deal?"

"I highly doubt "what you want to do" is going to be very good for my continued good health."

"Scared of me, Glasses?"

"Not a bit."

The electric blonde clapped her hands. "Then you'll come?" Bennet gave a resigned nod, and rose to follow Elle out the door of his "room." As they entered the hall, a loud crash and a strangled yell reached their ears, and the fluorescent lights shot sparks and went out. Immediately, Elle whipped around, seeming to sense the direction the sound was coming from. "Daddy!" she screamed. Bright bundles of sparks gathered around her fists as she streaked down the dim hallway toward Bob Bishop's office. Noah sprinted after her.

Elle was faster. She reached Bob's office in seconds and ripped open the door, nearly melting the handle with her touch. As Bennet entered the room, he saw the body of Bob Bishop sprawled across the floor, brain revealed. Elle whipped around, shock and confusion written all over her face.

Bennet's eyes narrowed. "He's here," he said softly. "Somehow, he's here. Stay behind me!" Pulling a pistol from Bob's holster, he lead the way into the hallway, keeping the gun leveled straight ahead.

And then, just as he had on November eighth, all those months ago, he flew into the wall, slamming his head into the unpainted concrete so hard he saw stars. By the time his vision cleared, Elle was pinned against the wall, gasping for air. The man responsible used his other hand to hold Noah in place.

Sylar narrowed his eyes, concentrating. Hurling a flash of telekinesis at Noah, he knocked the agent out, allowing him to crumple to the ground. Then he focused all his energy on the fiercely struggling blonde before him. He choked her, content to let her fall unconscious before he took her power. No need to speed up the suffering of the girl who had turned him into this monster he'd become.

Elle struggled and fought for air, and little sparks danced out of every finger as she pulled in a fractured breathe. But instead of using the air for screaming or begging, as he would have expected of her, she used it for a whisper. Just one word.

"Gabriel."

And all the walls around the man within the monster shattered.

--

**Another Note From Lara: Ooh look, longer chapter! And ooh, look, Lyle's not going to drop off the face of the earth like every other minor character! Woo-hoo! Review! (I even rhymed it for you, so you really ought to)**

**Yet Another Note From Lara (added later): Wow. So who was super-pissed that we couldn't log in for like three days? I was mad as hell, especially after the teaser clips for next weeks episode. I wanted to dish with my FF buddies, but NOOOOO... stupid server...**


	4. Pressing Matters part one

**A Note From Lara: So who else was pissed that we couldn't login/submit stuff? I know I was. I had a new chapter all typed up and ready to go. And I read like six stories, but couldn't leave reviews (I _always_ review) so I was pretty damn mad.**

--

_Company Outpost_

_Costa Verde_

It didn't last long, of course. Gabriel had been trapped and hidden for so long that all the softness and innocence he had shrank away from the sudden exposure. But it was enough that he released his hold on the blonde and dropped her to the floor.

"Gabriel," she coughed. "Did you kill Daddy? _Did you_?" He nodded slowly. She leapt to her feet as she regained her breath and brought her sparking fingertips under control. Now it was her turn to attack, and she smashed her tiny fists into Sylar's chest, burning away cloth and skin as she struck him. Tears of fury and confusion slid down her cheeks.

With a gesture he put up a telekinetic barrier between them, keeping her from harming him. The bright red weals and deep burns she had left on his skin healed, and as she watched this, Elle's struggles ceased. "Ooh," she said excitedly, "_Somebody's_ paid a visit to Pom-Pom." Then her face fell, as the image of her father's mangled corpse swam before her eyes. "I'll kill you," she whispered. "For what you did to Daddy. I have no idea _how_, but I'll kill you!"

She launched herself at him, huge charges building in her palms...

--

Noah Bennet opened his eyes blearily. The first thing he saw was a very green Company agent kneeling next to him. "He's awake!" the man yelled. "Agent Bennet, what happened?"

Groaning, he dragged himself into a sitting position. "Must've thrown me into the wall," he mumbled. "Dammit Hiro, if you're going to do a job, do it right..."

"Mr. Bennet, I don't understand. He's not making any sense," the young recruit called over his shoulder. "I think maybe he has a concussion."

Bennet shook his head, noticing as he did so that his glasses were cracked. " 'M fine. Not a concussion. Just knocked out. What happened?"

The man sighed. "We think it was Sylar, sir. He killed Bishop, skull sliced open, classic Sylar. Half the guards on this floor were dead or seriously injured. The power was cut on three levels, and... Miss Bishop is missing. We think Sylar may have abducted her." Bennet swore as loudly as his reeling head would allow him, and rubbed the sore spot on his temple. He vaguely remembered that Sylar had been the subject of one of Elle's missions last year. There was probably some kind of bad blood... With Elle, there almost always was.

"What do we do now?" the recruit asked.

Bennet shrugged. "I don't know. Go find a superior or something."

"Uh... Mr. Bennet? You _are_ the superior. Of all the agents in the region you have the most experience. You're practically a Company legend. Until we can contact a founding member, you're in charge of the North American branch of the Company."

--

_Steve's Rent-a-Car_

_Costa Verde_

"You look a little young to be traveling alone," the man behind the counter said suspiciously. "And it's past midnight. Little bit of an odd time to be renting a car, don't you think?"

Claire bit her lip, thinking fast. "Look, it's just... we're going to my grandma's house. My father is... not the best parent." Well _that_ was the truth. "But Grandma Betty said we could come live with her while he got into a program, so..." The man nodded understandingly.

Lyle sat on one of the hard plastic benches across from the main counter while Claire filled out the necessary paperwork. Carefully completing the signature- _Claire Butler_- she smiled at the skinny, well-dressed man she assumed was Steve. He handed her a set of keys and went to bring out the car she had rented.

It was a little way to the garage where Steve kept his cars, and Claire assumed that they were in for a wait. She sat down next to Lyle, and watched as the midnight trickle of cars passed by on the highway. "So," he said. "Are you ever going to tell me about what happened in New York?"

"Will you go back home if I do?"

"Probably not. But if you don't, I'll just call Mom and tell her where we are."

Claire groaned inwardly at the blackmail that was quickly getting old. "Fine," she said. "You know what happened with Ted and Matt Parkman last year, yeah? They broke into our house and Ted exploded. Well after that, Dad turned me over to this... friend... of his who was supposed to take me out of the country to keep me away from the Company. I ditched the guy at the airport and went to New York instead."

"Why?"

"Why not? Peter lives there."

Lyle raised his eyebrows. "You seem pretty hung up on this _uncle_ of yours."

Claire felt the heat rise in her cheeks. "I am _not_. But he dove off a building to save me before he'd even met me. And he was the only person I knew outside of Odessa at the time. Anyway," she said, leaving Lyle to make his own judgements, "he told me that he was going to explode. I didn't believe it at the time, because I didn't know--"

She was cut off as the air in front of them burst outward with a sharp clap and two figures appeared in front of them. "Hiro!" Claire exclaimed.

"Cheerleader?" Ando asked in surprise. He turned to Hiro and said in rapid Japanese, "I thought we were going to Las Vegas."

Hiro smiled a little too innocently. "I overshot it, I guess."

Ando raised his eyebrows, but dismissed it and turned back to Claire. "It's been a long time since I have seen you, Cheerleader."

Lyle's eyes were fixed on the sword strapped to Hiro's back. "You _know_ these people, Claire?" he asked disbelievingly. Claire grinned. "Yeah, I do. They were with Peter and me when he... well... Anyway, Hiro was the one who tried to kill Sylar. Lyle, this is Hiro, and his friend Ando. Guys, this is my brother, Lyle."

"_Tried_ to kill Sylar?" Hiro asked suddenly. "Is he not dead?"

Claire bit her lip. "No. He's not. He came to my house yesterday and he..." She trailed away, unwilling to keep going and determined not to break down at the memories.

Hiro's eyes widened behind his glasses, and he looked at Ando. "We must stop him! I _knew_ there was a reason we should come to America!" he said in Japanese. Ando narrowed his eyes at him. "I thought you wanted to come for _vacation_," he said slowly.

The time traveler shrugged, and turned to face the Bennet siblings. "We are sorry to leave so suddenly," he said in hesitant English, "But destiny calls once again. Goodbye!" He pushed his glasses further up his nose and seized Ando's arm. Both of them vanished with a pop.

Lyle looked at his sister uncertainly, and she shrugged. "My friends tend to do that," she said, trying to find the irony in the situation.

--

_Branek Memorial Hospital_

_Odessa, Texas_

In the course of the past few hours, Parkman and the mayor had managed to organize the city. The high school and the hospital were the main centers for treatment of the infected, and City Hall was the headquarters for control and organization.

For the most part, things had been quiet. The full enormity of the situation hadn't really sunk in with the town's forty thousand residents. Once it did... Peter was afraid to think what would happen. It was like something out of a movie. He expected riots in the near future, at the very least. The worst case scenario was someone making a run out of town and succeeding. If that happened, the virus would spread... and the future he'd seen would be true in every last awful detail...

Including Caitlin. Caitlin would die. As he walked down the hall toward Nathan's ward, Peter's thoughts turned to the fiery brunette. Ever since he'd regained his memory, he had been so confused about his feelings toward her. It was stronger than anything he'd ever felt toward Simone, but he didn't really know how he felt about her, either.

He didn't think he was really in love with her. Not really. Not beyond the everyday kind of love. Peter would never have admitted it to anybody, not even Nathan, but since he was a teenager he had always wanted to be in _love_. The real thing, the kind of love that made you feel like you couldn't breathe and tied you to the other person forever. He had never met anybody whose smile could light up a room, who could turn him inside out with just a glance. Well, except for Claire.

Peter shook his head, trying unsuccessfully to drive away the thought. She was his _niece_ for God's sake! That kind of thought was not appropriate in the slightest.

And yet, his mind drifted back to that night, when she had come to him in the police station. He had been sitting there, freezing and still soaked in his own blood. But she had come, and she had lit up the bare cell he'd been kept in. He didn't think that- Haitian's interference aside- he would _ever_ forget her parting words that night: "You're totally my hero."

Her hero. Peter had held onto that as his health failed him over the next few hours. No matter what happened, whether he saved the world and became a hero or failed and became nothing, it didn't really matter. Because to one beautiful cheerleader, he was already a hero.

Wrenching his mind away from these thoughts which were beginning to skirt definitely illegal territory, he pushed open the door he was looking for. Inside, a window allowed him to see into Nathan's hospital room. He pressed the small button beside the window and spoke. "Can you hear me Nate?"

With a touch of a button, his brother's bed levered upward so that he could see him. "You look like shit," Peter said, a touch of humor in his voice, but it was true. Stubble covered Nathan's chin, dark circles ringed his eyes, and his skin had a pallid, sickly look to it that seriously scared Peter.

"You don't look so good yourself," Nathan said in a raspy thin voice. "Have you slept at all in the past twenty-four hours?"

Peter shrugged. "Don't really need to. Not when there's so much to be done."

"You sound like me right before an election."

The younger Petrelli smiled painfully as Nathan let out a choked laugh. "They think you'll be okay for the time being," Peter said. "If they can keep you stable until they find a cure, you'll be fine."

"Until they find a cure," Nathan sighed. "How long do you think that'll be?"

Peter shrugged. "I have no idea. If worst comes to worst... we can try a blood transfusion. Claire's power," he added when Nathan looked confused. "But I suggested they find Mohinder Suresh. He knew something about this virus, didn't he?" Nathan shrugged, and the conversation lagged.

--

_Steve's Rent-a-Car_

_Costa Verde_

A few minutes after Hiro and his sidekick disappeared, Steve returned with the car. He tossed Claire the keys and said tersely, "It's parked outside." She gave him a grin and walked outside.

Lyle, trailing a few steps behind her, stopped dead in his tracks. "Oh my god," he whispered, staring at the car. It was a vintage Mustang convertible, canary yellow and complete with shiny chrome and redone leather seats. "Awesome car! But how are we ever gonna afford this?" he asked.

Claire grinned and reached into the outer pocket of her backpack, withdrawing a stitched wallet. She pulled out a shiny black card. "Dad's credit card," she said, a mischievous glint in her eye.

His eyes widened. "Wow. When did my sister become a badass who steals credit cards?"

"The second that electric bitch showed up," Claire said. "People like her need to be taken down." The cheerleader opened the side door of the car and hopped in. She wasn't about to tell Lyle the truth- that she would do _whatever_ it took to get to Odessa for the sake of her hero.

Lyle snapped the buckle on his seat belt, and Claire shot out of the parking lot. She turned down the palm-lined street and bit back a grin. She couldn't help feeling just a little bit excited at the prospect of an adventure. As much as she'd wanted to have a normal life, normal just felt... boring... now.

As she swung around the entrance to the freeway, Lyle suddenly asked, "So then what?"

"What do you mean?" Claire asked.

Lyle rolled his eyes. "After what's-his-face told you he was gonna explode? What happened?"

Claire sighed, resigned. "Peter asked me to shoot him, if he lost control. He gave me a gun. We went to meet Ted and Dad, and Peter absorbed Ted's radiation power. We decided that to keep the city safe, Peter and Ted had to get out, and I volunteered to go with them to... keep things under control. But we got separated. And Sylar attacked Ted. Took his power. Peter and I turned around because we thought Sylar was the bomb. We got... separated. Peter went looking for me, and ran into Sylar on Kirby Plaza. They fought. There were other people there who tried to help, but only Peter was powerful enough to take him on. Then Hiro teleported in and stabbed Sylar. But it was too late. Peter had lost control."

Her voice wavered as she continued. "He... he begged me to shoot him. But I couldn't. I just _couldn't_ kill him. He couldn't do anything, couldn't fly, couldn't heal. It was taking everything he had to contain the explosion, and we thought..." She broke off, not wanting to voice just exactly what her fears in that moment had been. "Then Nathan- my biodad- flew in. He carried Peter up into the sky, and he exploded three miles up. We haven't seen him since. Well, until yesterday."

It wasn't the full story. She knew there was more to it than that, but she didn't know if Lyle could take the _whole_ truth, all at once. She flipped the radio on and stared straight ahead at the moonlit road as they passed out of Costa Verde and into the California desert.

--

**Another Note From Lara: Okay, so Lyle now (finally) knows the whole story of his sister's experience. I thought that was something Kring got really wrong- Sandra and Lyle ought to know at least a little bit of what went down on Kirby Plaza.**


	5. Pressing Matters part two

**A Note From Lara: Okay, so I had a couple inspirationless days, but I'm back now, and ready to run. This opening scene is a little weak, I think, and the chapter's pretty short. There just wasn't much to tell in this episode, so... yeah...**

--

Peter looked sadly at the barbed wire fence, ten feet high, before him. It wasn't much, but it was too difficult to climb over and definitely enough to keep anyone out of Odessa... and enough to keep everyone in. That was the important thing, right? To keep this disease from spreading.

He remembered his earlier resolution, to go visit Claire. But he also remembered something else important- he had no idea how to find her. The only times he had seen her before her arrival in New York had been at the school and then at the county jail.

Maybe there was some way to locate her. Phone book or something. He teleported into the phone booth he'd spotted outside the high school, and rifled through the pages. Bennet, Bennet... his fingers slid down the smooth pages, quickly finding the _B _listings. Then he groaned. There were no less than six Bennets listed in this book. And given Noah's penchant for secrecy, what were the odds that the girl he was looking for had no listing at all?

Ripping out the page, he decided to continue his search anyway. He glanced at the first address and closed his eyes...

A shattered second later, he was standing in front of an empty lot with a "For Sale" sign driven into the ground in front of it. The foundations of a building still stood here, but some of the concrete looked as if it had been... melted. That didn't make sense...

Peter walked through the ashes of the ruined house, kicking at little patches of burned wood that crumbled away beneath his feet. All at once, a blisteringly loud thought shot across his mind from somewhere behind him. _Stay away from her house!_

He spun around on the spot and saw some kid pedaling by on a rusted-out bicycle. "Do you know who used to live here?" he called to the boy.

Turning up the driveway to nowhere, the kid put down his kickstand and stepped into the ashes with Peter. "Yeah," he said, staring around with his hands in his pockets.

"Claire Bennet?" he guessed hopefully.

The boy's eyes widened. "Did _you_ know her?" he asked.

Peter nodded. "Where is she now?"

Biting his lip, he replied, "About four months ago, the house burned to the ground. Gas explosion, the papers said. _Supposedly_ the whole family died."

For just the briefest of moments, grief welled up in Peter, choking him. But... "That's not possible!" he burst out.

"This stuff happens," the boy muttered, starting to walk away.

"No, I mean that's _not possible_," Peter insisted. "It would take more than a house fire to kill Claire!"

Stopping dead in his tracks, the boy turned around very slowly. "Wait a minute. Are you saying you... knew about Claire's ability?" he asked hopefully. Peter nodded. "Who are you, anyway?"

"Peter. Peter Petrelli."

"Zack Renquist." He offered Peter his hand, and the older man shook it.

After a moment, Peter asked hesitantly, "So... where _is _Claire, if she's not here?"

Zack shrugged. "She left, about five months ago. Her mom and little brother stayed in town a couple weeks longer, then they left. I haven't heard from her since. Don't know where she's been."

Slowly, Peter said, "Well, I know where she was as of November eighth. She was in New York City the last time I saw her."

"Yeah, um, about that. How exactly do you know her?" Zack asked, suddenly suspicious again.

Peter grinned ruefully. "Claire's my niece." _Not that I wouldn't change that if I could..._

--

Monica was ready physically. She'd watched half the videos on martial arts and self-defense that her little iPod contained. She had even practiced some of it, just to make sure she'd gotten it all down right. So certainly she was ready for this physically.

But mentally? Not so much. She loved her abilities, and she wanted to do this, but she was scared. What she was going to do was going to get her in _so_ much trouble if she pissed off the wrong people...

And yet, for the second time in two weeks, when Micah came to her, she pulled up her black hood (and snapped on the black domino mask Micah had bought her to go with it) and followed him out into the night.

The car had been drawing eyes, and so Micah had made it revert to the dusty old station wagon. But the new twist to his power hadn't gone away, and when he placed his hand on the hood, the car shifted, all the parts rearranging, until it was a sleek, black... Well, actually, Monica didn't know _what_ it was. She knew plenty about cars, but this wasn't really like any kind of car she knew of. It did, however, bear a suspicious resemblance to the Batmobile.

She hopped into the driver's seat, and the radio turned on as she did so. It was picking up the police band. More of Micah's work.

"There's a robbery going on at a convenience store just a few blocks over," Micah said urgently as he swung into the passenger seat. Monica glanced at him, then twisted the key in the engine and shot out of the driveway.

Five blocks and three should-have-been-red lights later, they were screeching to a halt outside the convenience store in question. No police had shown up- not surprising, there were far too few cops to keep up with the crime rate.

"Get ready to flip!" Micah said. Then he touched a small button on the dash. In seconds, the roof of the car had slid open, and the ejector seat activated. Monica flew through the air towards the store, realizing what his words meant. Twisting her body in a complicated flip, her feet smashed against the door, pushing it open. Another flip, and she landed, catlike, on the tile floor. _Jesus Micah, couldn't have a subtle entrance, could you..._

Two men in balaclavas with shotguns were holding up Mr. Freesom, the aging owner of the convenience store. They spun around as Monica smashed into the store. "What the hell--?"

"Hey," she said, deepening her voice ever so slightly. "Put down the guns, and get out of here."

The men glanced at each other, chuckling. "Uh... how about no," one of them said.

Monica shrugged, rising to her feet. "Your choice. But my way would've hurt a lot less." It was cocky, she knew, but Monica had always been very self-assured. And then, using some of the moves she had learned from her iPod, she attacked.

--

"Okay, hospitals are depressing. But this? This just sucks," Zack said, staring around him, voice muffled by the surgical mask covering his face to prevent infection. All around him, hundreds of people lay on cots and stretchers, saline drips connected to their arms and oxygen masks over the faces of the more seriously ill. The basketball hoops in the Union Wells High gymnasium had been pulled up to make room for a dividing line between the infected and the supply station.

Peter shrugged. "I don't think hospitals are so bad. I used to work in a hospital. Technically, I'm a nurse."

Zack shot him a look. "Technically?"

Grinning at the boy's perceptiveness, he said, "Well, for the last five months or so I've been... otherwise occupied." When Zack looked like he was about to ask more, Peter said, "It's a really long story. Maybe when this whole nightmare is over Claire will tell you."

Peter stared out at the rows and rows of the dying, and wondered if any of this had done any good for anyone. Maybe he'd have killed fewer people if he'd just stayed in New York and exploded.

--

"Look, Micah, let's go home," Monica pleaded. "We've hit eight robberies and a vandalism tonight. I'm _tired_, alright? We've done enough for one evening."

Micah looked at her with huge eyes, and she caved. "Fine. One more. What is it?"

He grinned at her. "There's been a kidnapping. A ransom note got delivered yesterday, but the cops figured out who the kidnappers were. Now they're at a standoff at a house across the city. If we could get the little girl out, at least...?" Monica nodded, foreboding rising in her stomach.

It didn't take Micah long to navigate them to the house in question. Parking two blocks away, they slipped out of the car. "Micah, what are you _doing_?" Monica hissed when Micah unclipped his seat belt.

"Coming with you," Micah said.

"No, you're not! No way!" Micah didn't say anything, just hopped out of the car. Monica rolled her eyes and followed him toward the flash of red and blue lights.

When they arrived at the two-story house, Monica surveyed the placement of the police out front. "I think the best way to get in is through the skylight on the second floor," she whispered. "I can get to the roof from the house next door- the police won't be watching the roof, most likely. But it'll be difficult with you on my back. Seriously. Go back to the car, Micah."

The little boy shook his head. "No way. I'm coming with you. Last time I didn't and-"

"And I got caught, remember? No, you can't come." Micah simply looked at her. "Micah, _no_."

"I'll just follow you in anyway, you know," he said. "May as well take me in the first time." Monica groaned. God, the kid made a good point.

Creeping up onto the roof of the house next door was slightly harder with Micah as a passenger on her shoulders, but Monica adjusted to the extra weight well. A flying leap into the branches of the tree between the houses took them halfway to the house, and then the rest of the way under cover of the leaves.

Prying open the loose skylight, Monica dropped down, then caught Micah when he jumped in after her. "Alright. Shh," she whispered. "We take a look, find out their position, grab the kid, and get out, got it?"

"I got it," came a voice from behind them. "Don't try to be heroes." A gun cocked.

Monica spun around, Micah still in her arms. One of the kidnappers Micah had seen on the TV that evening was holding a pistol, pointing it directly toward them. "Uh-oh," Micah whispered.

--

**Another Note From Lara: Yep. In trouble again. Reviews, please? Even if it's just to tell me this chapter sucked, or something? Seriously, even just one sentence is okay, I LOVE reviews.**


	6. Pressing Matters miniscene

**A Note From Lara: Okay, this is just an incredibly short chapter, only one short scene, to wrap up Pressing Matters. I know I said I was going to try to keep my updates consistant, and I promise this will be the only time I'll break that promise, 'kay?**

--

Peter walked through the rows of patients, surgical mask safely in place. At every makeshift cot, he stopped to ask if the occupant was comfortable, or to offer words of comfort. The ill were arranged by condition. The worst-stricken patients were on the far side of the gymnasium, while the least infected lay closer to the door.

It twisted Peter's heart to hear the coughing, and see little children lying in hospital beds with no one to care for them because all the medically trained people in Odessa were overwhelmed as it was. This was his fault, no matter what Parkman and Drey said to try and convince him otherwise.

He glanced across the sea of stricken people to the makeshift nurse's station. The boy he had met- Zack, who was Claire's friend- was working there. He had volunteered his help a few hours ago, and they had immediately put him to sanitizing everything in sight.

Peter paused by the bedside of a pretty blonde woman, who appeared to be in her late thirties or early forties. She was mixed in with those with the virus who weren't really seriously ill. "Do you need anything?" he asked gently.

She opened clear green eyes, yet untouched by fever, and smiled. "No. Not much wrong with me, really. I just can't--" She broke off, raising her hand in an obscure gesture.

"Can't what?" he asked.

"It's nothing. I'm just bored out of my mind," she said, but Peter had the distinct impression she was lying. "I picked a helluva day to try and come visit my daughter, didn't I? I came driving into town, started to feel funny. Next thing I know, I'm waking up here." She laughed mirthlessly.

Sensing that this woman needed a sympathetic ear, Peter shifted the unoccupied cot next to hers closer, and sat down on the edge of it. "I'm Peter," he said.

"Meredith," she answered, smiling. "Meredith Gordon."

--

**Another Note From Lara: Huh. I think the A/N's on this on might actually be longer than the chapter itself. *shrug* **

**Teasers for Chapter: Where Angels Fear To Tread**

**Elle awakens in unfamiliar surroundings**

**Sandra discovers that her children have absconded, and seeks help from.... ???**

**All this and more next time!**


	7. Where Angels Fear To Tread part one

**A Note From Lara: Wee! I'm actually managing to get a few seconds here and there to write stuff for this fic! Are you excited? Meh, probably not. Hey, you know what I discovered in writing the first scene of this chapter? Sylar and Elle are both really hard to write. The only harder character to get right is Daphne. I've been trying to write Daphne for another fic I have planned, and it's _hard_...**

**Oh by the way, timeline note. This begins the morning after Claire and Lyle left home. **

--

_An Abandoned Warehouse_

The very first thing she was aware of was that her head hurt hideously. She raised her hand to her forehead and felt a patch of bandaging over the small slit he had started to make over her eyes. It surprised her. She wouldn't have expected him to be so... so thoughtful. It wasn't something Sylar would have done. Gabriel Gray most certainly would have, once upon a time, but that man was gone.

Elle opened her eyes, glancing around her. She was lying on a pile of blankets in the back of... actually, she wasn't sure _where_ she was. She stood up, realizing as she did so, that her hands were not bound as she had expected.

_Curiouser and curiouser_, she thought to herself, smiling as she did so. When she was a little girl, her father had given her a copy of Alice In Wonderland to entertain her. After reading it, she had decided that she was just like Alice, and that one day she would stumble into a Wonderland of her own. But real life had found a way of intruding into her little-girl daydreams, and her life had been far from wonderful. At least, if what Bennet had told her about Daddy's treatment of her was true, it most definitely hadn't.

Regardless of his surprising treatment of her, she was less than satisfied with the fact that Sylar had kidnapped her in the first place. The nerve of him! Why hadn't he just killed her and be done with it? What was the purpose of even bringing her with him to wherever she was? Did he just want to toy with her in revenge before he finally killed her? Well, he was going to find out that she wasn't going to give him the pleasure.

After a cursory survey of her immmediate surroundings, Elle walked to the front of the room she was in, pushing open the heavy door. She found herself in a large empty warehouse that appeared to be abandoned. Across the wide expanse of concrete sat Sylar with his back to her. He didn't turn around, or acknowledge her presence at all, but she knew he knew she was awake. She crossed the floor, not bothering to soften her steps. Rather, she stomped as hard as she could, to let him know just _exactly_ what she thought of his kidnapping her.

"About time you woke up," he said sharply, still not turning around.

She stopped a few feet away from him and crossed her arms. "Where are we, _Sylar_?" she demanded, spitting out his adopted name as though it were an insult. To her, it was.

He shrugged, turning lazily in his chair to face her. "Somewhere in California," he said vaguely.

"Not good enough," she said. "I deserve a clear answer, at the very least."

He raised a taunting eyebrow. "Have you _ever_ gotten a clear answer from _anyone_, Elle?" he asked. "From what I understood, _Daddy_ wasn't too big on the telling of the truth. And he was a little heavyhanded in his use of the Haitian, wasn't he?"

Elle raised her hand, a charge building in her palm. "Don't you talk about Daddy! Like... like you're _better_ than him!" she shouted, zapping him.

Sylar brushed away the patch of char she had left on his shoulder. "Was he really any better than me? Are _you_?" he taunted. "Tell me, Elle, what was your reward for turning me into a murderer? Did you get a nice little Christmas bonus? Or does the Company not operate that way?" His tone was light and condescending, but something in his dark eyes told Elle that there was something more behind this line of questioning than he was giving away just yet. She didn't answer, and immediately regretted it when he took a final shot at her. "Or perhaps "Daddy" had a rather _different_ way of rewarding his little girl. Tell me, have you ever heard of an Electra complex? Much like a female Oedipus..."

"Don't you _dare_!" she screamed, incensed beyond reason. "That would _never_... I wouldn't. And neither would Daddy. And do you really think I wanted to do _any_ of what they made me do to you? No. If it were up to me, we would have left Gabriel Gray alone, and that would have been the end of it. But they told me to keep pushing... I tried to tell them you were harmless, but they wouldn't listen. And look what came of it!"

She stopped, breathing hard. Sylar's mouth dropped open in surprise. "You... you told them...?" She nodded. For a moment, she thought she saw a flicker of the same awe she had seen in his eyes the first time they'd met, but it was quickly replaced by his usual sneering, jaded expression. "Why should I believe that?" he asked silkily.

Elle sat down heavily on the empty chair next to him, all the strength drained out of her. This was the one hurt Daddy had inflicted that he _hadn't_ erased, because he hadn't known to. All the rest, the torture and the cold distance between them, that she could have forgiven. But the loss of Gabriel Gray was not so easily forgotten. It was the wound on her soul that was never going to heal. "Because it's true," she said quietly. "Gabriel was a good man. He was sweet; he was innocent. He was... perfect. I would never have..." She broke off, searching for words. "If I weren't such a coward, maybe I could've done the right thing. Maybe I could have saved you- or him. God, what's the difference anymore? He's gone, isn't he?"

Sylar didn't reply, and he didn't meet her eyes. His gaze was fixed on her face, but his own expression was curiously blank. It wasn't his usual hunter's stare, and he seemed to be searching for something deep within his own mind. They sat in silence.

--

_Company Headquarters_

_Costa Verde_

Noah Bennet slid his trademark horn-rimmed glasses off his face, rubbing the bridge of his nose in frustration as he surveyed the papers splayed across the desk that used to belong to Bob Bishop. He'd had a very... trying... day after the early-morning attack by Sylar. He'd considered dispatching a pair of Company agents to attempt to track the serial killer and his captive down, but he knew that against Sylar they wouldn't have a chance. Moreover, he really couldn't spare anyone at the moment. Apparently, when Sylar broke in, he had somehow managed to cut the power in several sectors. It hadn't been a problem in the administrative sections that had been blacked out, but the idiot had also shut down Level Five. _Dangerous _people were kept in the cell block on Level Five. Not one of them as unpredictable or as genuinely homicidal as Sylar himself could be, but any one of them was deadly in their own way. And at least six of them had broken loose when their electronically-sealed cell doors lost power.

Of course, as he knew all too well from the records he'd read that not all of the inmates were violent people. For god's sake, Peter Petrelli himself had apparently been here up until a few weeks prior, when he'd absconded with an imprisoned Company founder. Bennet wasn't sure what that had been about, but he intended to find out when the situation was a little less dire.

For now, however, his entire focus had to be on recovering the escaped prisoners. It was priority that they be recovered- and fast. Bennet refocused his mind and restarted his attempt to wade through the mountain of paperwork, coalating data. He was searching for any keys to locating one of the escapees, a dangerous character known only as the German. _Ha, the German. Like the Haitian._ Shaking his head to interrupt the irrelevant train of thought, he forced himself to concentrate...

--

_Bennet Household_

_Costa Verde_

Sandra Bennet entered the kitchen early in the morning. "Lyle!" she yelled. "Claire! Come help with breakfast!" She bustled around for a few minutes, pulling out a frying pan and setting a frozen pack of bacon on the draining board to thaw. Then, as she turned around to call down her sedentary offspring a second time, she saw a single sheet of paper lying on the kitchen table, in Claire's handwriting.

With a sense of foreboding growing in the pit of her stomach, she picked up the note and read it.

_Mom--_

_Don't freak out. I know it's totally useless to say that, but I'm going to say it anyway, because_

_I know you're going to worry yourself sick. I've gone back to Odessa to try and help Peter. _

_My blood can heal anything, at least as far as we know, so maybe they can use me as some kind_

_of cure for this virus thing. Please don't worry. I'm really sorry to scare you, but I have to do_

_this. They need me, and it's not like there's anything that can hurt me anymore. Don't call the_

_police and report a missing person. After all, we're not exactly the normal family. If the police_

_gets started investigating us, I don't know what would happen. I'll call you as soon as I get to_

_Odessa, okay? _

_Love,_

_Claire_

_P.S. Lyle just caught me sneaking out, and he's threatening to wake you up if I don't take him_

_along. I tried to reason with him, but he's stubborn just like Dad. I'll take good care of him,_

_I promise. If anything happens- and believe me, it won't- I'll just find a syringe or something_

_and inject him with my blood._

Sandra sank into one of the wooden chairs, pressing a white-knuckled hand to her mouth, gasping. "Oh my god," she whispered. "Claire, what are you thinking?"

Normally, she trusted her daughter's judgment. Claire was smart, like her father. She could handle herself, but this time she might have gone too far. Indestructible or not, Claire was running into a situation she didn't know anything about, and without even thinking about it.

When she had regained her composure, Sandra rose to her feet and hurried to her husband's desk, searching through the drawers until she found the local phone book she was looking for. She knew she had no chance of recovering her children on her own. She would need help. And Claire had a good point- there was a hidden danger if she tried to involve the police in her search. No, Sandra needed help from someone else. She ran her finger down the listings, searching for the R's...

--

**Another Note From Lara: Please please please review. I actually need incentive to continue lately, because I have to sneak in writing time at odd hours, due to restrictions on my writing because the ACTs are coming up and I need a really high score. Which means studying. Which means that if you want more chapters in a timely fashion, you need to review. A lot. That means YOU. **


	8. Where Angels Fear To Tread part two

**A Note From Lara: Wow, it's been forever since I updated this one. Sorry guys. I blame a sudden resurgence of my interest in a couple of other fics.**

**Also, I imagine that if you're reading this, you probably are a Paire shipper or at least like Paire, so if you haven't read it already, I have a fic to recommend to you. It's 'A Leap To Safety' by Marcus S. Lazarus. It's one of THE BEST Paire fics ever written... and it's not even finished yet!**

--

_Odessa_

"Peter!" Parkman yelled. "Phone!"

Peter sighed. Much as he liked and respected Matt Parkman, sharing a hotel room with the man was getting on his nerves. They were both overworked, trying to control the disease spreading like wildfire through the population of Odessa- already, nearly a tenth of the city's ten thousand residents had fallen ill- and neither one of them was controlling their minds as well as was necessary in each other's presence. Every time they had gotten within ten feet of each other this morning, they had both been slammed with violent mental feedback.

As a result, Peter's ears were ringing and his head throbbed when he reached lethargically across the table to grab the receiver. "Peter Petrelli," he muttered tiredly. Sirens pounded against his temples- yet another ambulance bearing more victims to the hospital and high school.

"Peter," responded a cordial voice he hadn't heard for over four months. "Good to see you're back on the grid."

"Noah?" Peter gasped. "How did you know where I was?"

The man with the horn-rimmed glasses sighed. "I have access to huge resources. I've somehow found myself in charge of the entire North American division of the Company. Bob Bishop is dead- Sylar killed him- and there's no one else to take his place but me until we can make other arrangements."

"Sylar?" Peter gasped. "I thought he was dead! Hiro killed him!"

Bennet laughed without a trace of humor. "So did I. But apparently Hiro didn't do his job as well as we had hoped he would. He's been out of sight as long as you have, but he showed up at the Company yesterday and now I have a huge mess on my hands. Somehow he managed to let six extremely violent Level Five prisoners out of their cells, and absconded with Elle. That gives us eight extremely dangerous individuals running around. Elle and Sylar together are like gasoline and matches- it never ends well. Trust me, I've seen the two of them in the same room together, and... well, the point is, I need your help Peter, if I'm going to round these people up."

Peter's eyebrows drew together in confusion. Sylar knew Elle? Small world. "How can I help?" he asked. "I... well, I'm not much use right now. I'm in Odessa."

"I'm perfectly aware of where you are," Bennet said. "And I need you to come to Costa Verde and help me find these criminals."

Peter shook his head. "I can't, Noah. Claire's ability seems to be keeping me resistant to the Shanti virus, but I might be carrying it, and I can't risk taking it outside of Odessa. I've been to the future, Noah. I've seen what will happen if this virus gets out. In under a year, 93% of the world's population is going to be dead."

There was a brief silence as Bennet mulled this over. "You're the only one who can stop Sylar," he said slowly.

"Like I haven't heard _that_ before!" Peter said, a trace of bitterness entering his voice. "And because I decided to go back and fight him, I exploded. If he crosses my path, I'll take him down, but I'm not going hunting for him."

"Fine," Bennet said, a trace of anger in his controlled voice. "But you know he's nearly as obsessed with you as he is with Claire. I've seen his file. He wants what you can do. He'll come for you one of these days, no doubt about it."

Peter nodded. "Maybe. But right now, I'm where I need to be." There was silence on the other end, and Peter searched for something to say. As he cast his mind around, an image popped into his head. Claire. His cheerleader. He could practically see her standing before him, she was so vivid in his memory, with her long blonde curls falling around her shoulders and her green eyes flashing. "Tell Claire I said 'hi', okay?" he said, his heart aching. "Let her know I'll see her as soon as I can."

Bennet gave his assent. "We have a lot to discuss when the situation is Odessa is contained," he said curtly, and ended the conversation.

Peter stood stock still for a moment, then slowly hung up the phone and threw himself down on the lumpy mattress, burying his face in the pillow. His vision of Claire still rang in his head, and he nearly screamed in frustration. This was bad- this was very, _very_ bad. Because Peter thought he might just be falling for his niece.

_Outside of Costa Verde_

Hiro turned solemnly to his friend. "Are you sure you want to come with me? Sylar is a very powerful enemy."

"I wouldn't miss it," Ando insisted. "You are my friend; I will stand by you." Pushing his glasses further up his nose, the time-traveller grinned, seized Ando by the arm, and slammed his eyes shut. Less than a second later, they were standing outside a warehouse by the docks south of Costa Verde. "Is this where Sylar is?" Ando asked hesitantly.

Hiro nodded. "I think so." He pushed open the side door to the warehouse, and entered, Ando right behind him. They found themselves in an equipment storage room to the side of the main floor of the warehouse. Poking his head out through the connecting door, Hiro spied Sylar talking to a short blonde woman. He came back into the side room, a worried look on his face. "There is someone with him," he whispered.

"Who?" Ando demanded softly.

"A woman," Hiro said.

Ando's brow furrowed in confusion. "His next victim?"

"No," Hiro said, shaking his head slowly. "I don't think so. She did not look afraid of him. _Everyone_ should be afraid of Sylar. He is a villain. Maybe... she is a villain too?"

Ando shrugged. "Well, you can take her out pretty easily, can't you?" Hiro nodded. It would be easy with time stopped. "Go on then!" Ando exclaimed.

Hiro rushed into the other room, unsheathing his sword as he stepped into view. "Sylar!" he shouted, and ran forward. The serial killer rose to his feet, but before he could so much as move a finger, the girl he had been speaking with whirled around. She threw out her arms and Hiro was struck in the chest by a bolt of crackling blue electricity. Hiro screamed as he flew backward, landing hard on the floor. His head hit the floor and he seemed stunned.

"Hiro!" Ando exclaimed, rushing out to seize the katana from Hiro's limp fingers. He stepped between Hiro and the two villains menacing him. "You will not hurt him," he said, though his voice shook.

Sylar glanced at Elle. She shrugged. "Let 'em go," she muttered. "They seem pretty harmless. Couple of weirdos. The time-traveler's record is apparently pretty impressive, though. After all, he half-killed you a few months back. Maybe we should..." She contemplated the two Japanese men before her. Suddenly, Hiro's hand seized Ando by the ankle, and they disappeared with a pop as air rushed in to fill the space where their bodies had been just a few seconds before.

"Damn," Elle said with a sigh. She glanced across the intervening space to commiserate, and found Sylar staring at her. "What?" she demanded.

"You... defended me?" he asked, a hint of confusion in his eyes.

She nodded. "Why not? We're in this- whatever _this_ is- together now, aren't we?"

"Are we?"

Elle shrugged. "With Daddy dead, there's not really much left for me at the Company. Glasses and I never really saw eye-to-eye, and being an agent is exciting and all, but I think traveling around with you might be more fun. Whether you're still the man I knew or not, you've _got_ to be lonely. I may as well keep you company." She sashayed across the room to the side door where he had been keeping her before she awoke, presumably intending to clean away the last of the blood on her face and neck. Before she disappeared she turned sharply, blonde hair fanning across her shoulders. "And let's face it- there's nobody else with the stomach to watch what you do." She slid smoothly out of sight.

As he watched her go, his lips twitched upward ever so slightly. Sylar tried to tell himself that Elle was dangerous- a liar, a traitor, not to be trusted. But he couldn't help but like the sound of being "in it together." What was wrong with him? Three minutes of conversation, and he was already falling back into the same trap he'd stumbled into all those months ago. He was Sylar, for god's sake! He was special, he didn't need anyone to cut the rope for him anymore. Not even an angel with a broken watch.

He scoffed that he had ever thought of her as an angel. She might _look_ like one, but behind the innocent blue eyes, Elle was a hell-raiser. Ironic, really. The path he walked now was one where angels would fear to tread, and somehow it was Elle who had appointed herself his companion-slash-irritation on his quest for power. His angelic demon, apparently intent on walking the path with him.

_Company Headquarters- __Costa Verde_

Bennet sighed, rubbing at his temples. He really was in a tight spot here. He had absolutely no way to catch the Level Five escapees; he couldn't tell people under his command that, because they expected him to understand what to do. And Peter Petrelli had been his last, best hope for finding them. This was going to be a bigger mess than he had originally thought.

On the other hand, Peter's request that he tell Claire hello for him reminded Bennet that he was free to contact his family again. There was no Bob Bishop peering over his shoulder, watching his every move. He picked up the receiver and dialed.

Sandra answered on the second ring. "Hello?" she said, a hopeful tone in her voice.

"Sandra?" Bennet said.

There was a brief silence. Then she exclaimed, "Noah! I thought you were with the Company. I tried to contact you, but I didn't know how..."

"Why?" he asked, a pit of cold fear twisting in his stomach at the faint note of hysteria in Sandra's voice. "What's happened?"

She sighed. "It's Claire and Lyle. They're gone. Claire saw the news about her father in Texas, and got it into her head that she had to go and "help," and it seems that Lyle caught her sneaking out and went with her, and now I've got no idea where either of them are. They've been gone since sometime last night."

Bennet clutched the edge of the desk, his knuckles going white. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" he demanded.

"I already told you, I tried to, but I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to track down the Company. But don't worry- I have someone looking for them already."

"You didn't call the police!?"

Sandra chuckled. "No, I knew better than that. I called somebody more useful than the police..."

_Somewhere in Nevada_

Claire sat up, her neck stiff from sleeping in the cramped confines of the convertible. The muscles immediately repaired themselves, but she still felt a phantom ache. A glance at the clock set in the dashboard told her that it was nearly eleven-thirty. They had wasted the better part of the day asleep. She had pulled off the highway at around six a.m. because she desperately needed to sleep if she was going to keep driving, and both she and Lyle had immediately dozed off. They had made it past the California border, but beyond that Claire wasn't too sure where they were.

She pushed a strand of sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes. It was only May, but the flat expanses of the Nevada desert reflected the hot sunlight and concentrated the heat. Quickly, Claire pulled her hair up into a ponytail to get it up off her neck. A few wisps of hair escaped and straggled down past her face.

"Lyle, wake up," she said, shaking her brother in the passenger seat.

He sat up, wincing as he moved. Claire let out a short laugh. "You look like a tomato!" she said. "How'd you get so sunburned?"

Lyle shot her a glare. "Maybe it was, I don't know, the fact that I slept_ during the day_, in the _desert_, in a _convertible_. How come you're not fried?"

"I regenerate, remember? I can't get sunburned."

"Lucky."

Claire reached into the back seat and pulled a water bottle out of her backpack. She unscrewed the cap and took a sip, then offered it to Lyle, who drank it down greedily. When he'd finished, he offered the half-empty bottle back to her, but she shook her head, simultaneously turning the key in the ignition. "You can drink it all if you want it. I can survive without it. We should probably conserve it in case the car breaks down or something and we have to walk a while."

"Lovely," Lyle said sarcastically.

She pulled away from the shoulder and they started off down the highway. Claire allowed her thoughts to drift, and immediately her mind was drawn back to Peter. Was he okay? Did this mystery virus affect regenerates, or would he be immune? It seemed like he should be, but you never knew with these things. In the last six months, her life had gotten so completely crazy she didn't know _what_ to expect anymore. The only thing that really seemed solid anymore was Peter; he was her hero, and he had always been there for her when she needed a savior most. Now it was her turn to save him. Maybe her blood would cure this virus or not, but either way, she had a feeling that Peter needed a shoulder to lean on right now. Well, Claire was beginning to discover that she _was_ strong enough to bear the weight of two. She had learned that when her father "died."

The yellows and browns and greens of the desert blurred together with the silver ribbon of highway in front of her, and Claire lost track of time for awhile, her body going through the motions of driving on autopilot. Vaguely, she noticed that Lyle had found a crusty bottle of sunblock in the glove compartment (presumably left behind by the last person who had rented the car) and was slathering it over his pink face and arms. She smiled- not having to wear greasy sunblock was one of the definite advantages of being indestructible...

Suddenly something dropped heavily into the back seat with a loud crash. Claire jerked, coming out of her stupor with a shock. Her motion sent the car swerving across the road, and she slammed on the break, turning the wheel sharply to bring them back into the proper lane. They skidded to a stop in the middle of the highway. Claire clutched the steering wheel with white-knuckled hands for a moment, staring straight ahead with her heart pounding. Then she whipped around to see what had startled her.

"West!?"

_Northern Alaska_

"Couldn't you have taken us somewhere warm?" Ando said in frustration, rubbing his arms to warm them up.

Hiro pushed his glasses back up his nose. "It's not my fault I was injured and fainted!" he exclaimed. "You could have tried to build a fire, or at least found shelter!" He sat down in a snowdrift, and Ando dropped beside him. "What are we going to do now?"

"What do you mean?"

The time-traveler shook his head slightly. "Sylar is too powerful for me to attack now. I think he has the Cheerleader's power. Not to mention that woman protecting him."

Ando nodded. "That was weird. Why would anyone try to protect Sylar?"

"I don't know," Hiro said slowly, "But I know that we're going to need help if we are going to defeat him. And I have just the person in mind!"

Ando's eyebrows traveled upward in confusion. "Who?" he asked.

Hiro grinned. "Do you remember your stripper friend? The one you went to visit in Las Vegas? She has super-strength. Maybe she will help us fight Sylar. We need to go find Niki!" He grasped his friend's shoulder, and together they disappeared with a pop.

--

**Another Note From Lara: I don't really know how I feel about this chapter, but I'd like to know what you think. Feedback is always appreciated!**


	9. Where Angels Fear To Tread part three

**A Note From Lara: I guess all the zillions of reviews I get for the Dianne Saga have been spoiling me. You people FAIL at reviewing, you know that? Special thanks to Engelmohr2004, freyame, and Superspyder CJ for actually reviewing. You guys rock. Everyone Else: Shame.**

--

_Odessa_

The urgent beeping of the pager Mayor Drey had supplied to him drew Peter out of his well of misery. Blearily he dragged himself up from the comfort of the pillows and checked the number on the pager. It was Parkman. This was a surprise- Peter had thought Parkman was still in the hotel room with him. Apparently he had been wallowing in self-pity for longer than he'd thought. He pulled out his cell phone and automatically clicked through the numbers saved to it to Parkman's. It was the number he had called most since the virus broke out three days ago.

"What is it?" he demanded the moment Parkman picked up.

Parkman sighed. "There's some people trying to get into the city from outside. They say they're from the government, and the inside of the guy's head checks out, but I wasn't sure, the way they're acting... You'd better get down here."

Peter nodded, forgetting Parkman couldn't see him. "I'll be there in sixty seconds. You at the highway bridge or the south gate?"

"South gate."

Peter snapped the phone shut and pulled his wrinkled T-shirt straight again. He pushed back the curtains, letting in the bright Texas sunlight that was such an odd contrast to the situation in Odessa, which he suspected had grown even more desperate since the last time he'd spoken to the chief of police and the mayor. Pushing his concerns about his traitor heart otu of his mind, Peter threw up the window, and tipped out into the open air, thankful that they were up high enough that he would be able to get airborne before he hit the ground. He rose into the air, slowly at first, and then he disappeared in a ring of displaced air as he cleared the sonic barrier.

He arrowed toward the southern gate, the only entrance into Odessa that Peter hadn't already blocked off. It was patrolled night and day- as was the rest of the barbed wire barrier- by a contingent of Odessa's finest. But as he was passing over a pocket park just off Main Street, he spied a small figure lying on the ground, and dove down to the ground. He dropped gently to the pavement next to an unconscious girl, maybe eight years old. Blonde curls spiralled past her face in a wild mop; he pushed them out of her face, and as he did so, felt the heat of her skin. She moaned softly as his cool hands brushed against her hot forehead.

Without a second thought, Peter scooped her up into his arms and launched himself into the air once more, streaking back the way he had come, heading to the hospital. The girl shifted in his arms, opening her eyes blearily. "Dad?" she asked in a hoarse voice.

"Shh," Peter said. "It'll be alright soon." He hoped it would.

_Two minutes later..._

Peter jogged the last quarter mile to the south gate after touching down in an out-of-sight patch of mesquite. The bright Texas sunlight once again seemed insanely incongruous to the heavy cloud of fear that seemed to be hanging over the town. Parkman shaded his eyes with a hand as he approached. "What took you so long?" he asked quietly.

"Got held up," Peter said curtly, not wanting to elaborate in front of the contingent that was waiting outside the fence.

A large military convoy, complete with automatic rifles and camouflage fatigues stood outside the fence, staring around in the noon heat. Two men had been allowed inside the barbed wire, and Peter was surprised to see that the taller of the two was the same government agent he had met in the future, the one who had first told him what was going on. Good, maybe they had a prayer of getting out of this alive if he was here. "What's going on here?" Peter asked.

The man raised an eyebrow. He had a look in his eyes that Peter recognized only too well. It was the unconsciously condescending look that very tall people gave to very short people. Peter was used to it. "Who's this guy?" he asked dismissively, not bothering to answer Peter's question.

"_This guy_ is the only reason this thing hasn't spread past Odessa," Parkman said heatedly. "He's more or less in charge around here, 'cause the public servants in this hellhole are mostly useless."

"Well then," he said, "I'm pleased to meet you, Mr--?"

"Petrelli. Peter Petrelli."

They shook hands. "James Mason. I'm only sorry we're meeting under unfortunate conditions such as this one."

Peter nodded. "What exactly are you here for?"

Mason sighed, rubbing a hand across his eyes. "We're your relief squad, Mr. Petrelli. The U.S. government wants the situation here to be contained in as neat and efficient manner as possible, so they've sent a contingent from the army to assist with stopping the spread of this virus, with me in charge. So we'd like to thank you for your assistance, and officially relieve you of your... _position_."

This was unexpected. Peter was more than happy to relinquish control of this mess- he might be a nurse, but something on this scale was so far beyond his experience it wasn't even ironic. And once again, just as he had in the future, Peter sensed something _wrong_ about James Mason. "Um... right," he said. "Do you want to see what we've set up so far, then?"

"Certainly," Mason said. "Officer Parkman will be happy to give us a tour, I'm sure."

Parkman shrugged uncomfortably. "Sure. Uh, do you want your men to wait out here until you've gotten the lay of the land or...?"

Mason turned quickly to face his platoon through the barbed wire. He slid back the gate manually, ignoring Parkman's squawk of protest. "Execute marching order alpha," he said sharply. The soldiers marched stiffly through the gate and began to fan out at a quick job along the high fence, spreading out in pairs.

"What's going on? What are you doing?" Peter exclaimed.

"I'm forming a perimeter. This will be absolutely vital to preventing the spread of this virus," Mason said coolly.

Peter nodded. He had been relieved to see Mason at first, thinking that maybe they could get out of this after all. Now, he was beginning to think otherwise.

_Somewhere in Nevada_

"West?" Claire gasped. "What are you _doing_ here?"

The dark-haired boy grinned at her from beneath the wisp of black hair that had fallen into his eyes when he crash-landed. "Your mother called me. She more or less got down on her knees and begged me to find you guys. She's scared out of her mind."

"I left a note," Claire muttered under her breath. "Well, you found us. Now will you please _un_-find us?"

West shook his head. "Where are you going?" he asked.

Claire crossed her arms, twisting around further in her seat to try and get a better angle to glare at him. "Lyle and I are going to Odessa, Texas. As my mother should know, if she'd actually read that note."

"Odessa... isn't that the place where they've got the flu outbreak or something?"

Lyle smacked himself in the forehead in aggravation. "Yes," Claire said, ignoring her brother. "My father's there. And my uncle. I need to help them deal with this."

West raised his eyebrows. "I thought your father was dead."

"Noah Bennet's just fine. Apparently they shot him up with my blood and it healed him. But I'm talking about my biological father. Nathan Petrelli. And my uncle Peter. I haven't seen him since before I came to California. I thought... I thought he was dead. He-- look, it's a long story. Can you please just get the hell out of my car and go back to Costa Verde? Tell my mom I'm okay and I know what I'm doing, alright?"

For a moment, he just sat there watching her. Then he crossed his arms, settling back in the seat. "Nope. I'm not moving."

"What?" Lyle said in confusion and irritation.

West shrugged. "I'm coming with you guys."

Claire and Lyle shared a look. "We might spend the rest of the day arguing with him," Claire said slowly. "We can't afford to waste that much time."

Lyle shook his head. "No way. The guy's a tool, I've said that from the start."

"Hey now--!"

"Fine," Claire said, interrupting. "You can come. But you ought to know that we're getting into some really crazy stuff." Lyle crossed his arms, turning away from her in a childish cold-shoulder. West grinned broadly, the same wide smile that used to make her stomach do funny things. But now, the smile was too big and too even; it made it feel a little forced.

She put the car into first gear and stepped on the gas, shooting down the highway once more. No one she'd ever met had a smile like Peter's. That crooked little grin, that always seemed to be half teasing her and half laughing with her... She shook her head, suddenly glad that Officer Parkman wasn't anywhere near her. It was frustrating enough to have the biggest crush the world had ever seen on your _uncle_, without adding the embarrassment of a telepath into the mix.

_Niki Sanders' House_

_Las Vegas_

Hiro sighed. He sat down next to Ando on the front steps of the house. "She is not home. How long do you suppose she'll be gone?"

Ando shrugged. "Why do you always drag me into your crazy quests?" he asked absently.

"Because you secretly enjoy it?" Hiro suggested. Ando was about to reply scathingly when a female voice interrupted him.

"What are you boys doing here?" Standing before them was a beautiful redheaded woman with big green eyes peering at them curiously.

Hiro leaped to his feet. "We are looking for Niki Sanders!" he exclaimed.

The woman shook her head. "I'm Tina Lavender- I was a friend of Niki's."

"'Was'?" Hiro asked.

She nodded sadly. "Yeah. I'm sorry to have to break the news to you, but Niki got killed last week."

"Oh no!" Ando exclaimed. "How?"

Tina shrugged. "I don't know all the details, but she was down in New Orleans, and got caught in a burning building trying to be a hero or something. Damn thing went up in a fireball and she was still inside. It's a real shame. She had a little boy, just ten years old. Real bright kid, and he's got no one left in the world now." She looked at the house, seeming to see through it rather than the house itself. "Niki was a good friend of mine. I'd watch Micah when she had stuff to do, and we went to AA meetings and stuff together..." She trailed away.

Hiro glanced at Ando. "Do-over?" he mouthed at him. The other man shrugged.

"Thank you, Miss Tina," Hiro said, turning back to the redhead. "You have helped us greatly."

Immediately, he seized Ando by the arm, and they disappeared. Tina stared at the spot where they'd been, mouth agape. "Sweet Jesus...!" she whispered.

_Mohinder Suresh's Apartment_

_New York City_

Maya leaned back against the sofa, irritated. "I don't see why he has to go himself!" she complained to little Molly Walker. "All this nonsense about his blood being the only cure for this disease..." She shook her head. "'Oh Maya, would you mind staying with Molly for a few days while I go off to sort out the problem and be a hero?'" she mocked in a high-pitched mimic of Mohinder's voice.

Molly smiled at her. "Well, at least we still have Star Trek marathons to keep us company," she said.

The hispanic woman sighed. "For too long I have seen Doctor Suresh as my only chance to save myself. I need his help to get rid of this curse."

"We could always go after him," the human GPS said, looking slyly at the older woman.

Maya cocked her head to one side, considering. "I don't know if that's such a good idea."

Molly grinned. "Sure it is! All I have to do is go tell the landlord that Mohinder and me are going on vacation, and to hold our mail. And I know where Matt keeps the cash for emergencies. We can take a Greyhound bus to Texas, okay?"

"How did you get to be so smart?" Maya asked. Molly didn't answer.

_New Orleans_

_Six Days Ago_

The building crumbled as a wall of flame roared out of every window. The shockwave from the blast knocked both Monica and Micah to the ground, and they flipped over where they lay, watching in horror as the old house was consumed. There was no possible way Niki could have made it out alive...

"Oh my god," Monica whispered. "Oh my god!"

They struggled to their feet, afraid to let go of each other. Micah clung to her, leaning his head against her chest, his small-child sobbing echoing in her ears as tears slid down Monica's face. "It's not real!" he cried. "It can't be real!"

A loud popping sound behind them made them spin around. And there, against all odds, stood Niki flanked by a pair of Japanese men. "Mom!" Micah screamed, throwing himself into her arms. She knelt down to embrace him. "I'm here baby," she whispered. "It's okay."

"What happened?" Monica asked the bespectacled man to Niki's right. "How is this--?"

Hiro grinned. "I bend time and space," he said.

Monica's eyes narrowed in confusion. Ando hurried to explain. "He can travel through time and teleport." Monica nodded in understanding. "Thank you," she said softly. Hiro nodded, looking intensely pleased with himself.

By now, Niki had unlocked Micah's arms from around her neck and straightened up. "Thank you," she said to Hiro, at the same time Micah exclaimed, "Hey, I know you guys! You came to my house that one time, and you--" He pointed at Hiro. "--were there on Kirby Plaza." Hiro nodded, pleased that the boy remembered him.

"We have come from the future," Ando said. "Again. We heard you were dead, and came back to save you. We need your help."

"With what?" Niki asked hesitantly.

Hiro stepped forward. "We are trying to stop Sylar," he said.

Niki cocked her head to one side. "Sylar? Who--? Is that the guy you stabbed that night?" Hiro nodded. "I remember. I hit him with a parking meter." Micah laughed.

"He has returned," Hiro said solemnly. "And I am powerless against him and his new sidekick."

The super-strong blonde shook her head. "What good am I, though? I've lost my powers."

"Oh no!" Hiro exclaimed. "How?"

She sighed, shaking her head sadly. "I was at the Company for help trying to deal with... with some stuff. I was injected with this virus that took away my strength. Mohinder Suresh was trying to find a cure for me, and he called yesterday to say that he'd found one. He was supposed to be here by now."

Hiro nodded. "We will find him and bring the cure to you!" he said firmly.

Niki smiled. "Thanks."

"But in the meantime, do not let your friend in Las Vegas find out you are alive," Ando added. "If she does, we won't know you're dead, and we won't come back in time to save you." Niki's smile faltered, clearly trying to work out the logistics issues posed by time travel, but there was gratitude in her eyes.

--

**Ah yes. Niki IS alive after all. Even though I'm pretty sure Tim Kring would NOT have pulled what I just did, I don't care. Niki was one of my favorite characters, and I can't justify killing her off. Such a shame I can't find a way to save DL as well... Anyway, reviews are, as always, appreciated. :)**


	10. Where Angels Fear To Tread 3 and a half

**A Note From Lara: Alright, so I have a very sad thing to tell you. The Epic!Whiner (AKA Maya) is actually going to be extremely important to this storyline. I know, we're all so sad. But I'll try to do her a bit OOC so that she's bearable. In other words, less epic!whining.**

--

_New York City_

Maya followed behind the self-assured nine-year-old as the girl scurried through the bustling streets, leading the older woman by the hand. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" she asked uncertainly.

"Sure," Molly said happily. She had already talked the landlord into holding their mail for two weeks and used a series of tables at the bottom of various city transit maps to figure out which subway to take to get to the Greyhound stop in time for the cross-country bus she had decided on taking. Maya was in awe of the little girl's ability to get _anything_ done if she set her mind to it. Although she knew that Molly had lived in an entirely different city for most of her life, it was as though she had been in New York the whole time, so confident was she.

"What exactly are we going to do when we get to Texas?" Molly asked, once they were safely ensconced in a rattling subway car.

Maya peered uncertainly at the confines of the train. "I am not sure. But Doctor Suresh promised me a cure, and I have to get it."

Molly nodded. "He can do it," she said. "It might take him a little while to figure it out, but he cured me, so he can cure you." She swung her feet absentmindedly, studying the floor. Suddenly, she looked up. "What exactly is wrong with you?" she asked.

"I..." Maya hesitated, a spark of unease in her eyes. "I have this... power. I cannot always control it."

"I have a power too," Molly said, grinning. "I can find people. What's yours?"

"I kill people. It is like... a terrible plague."

Molly leaned her head back, looking at the other woman for a long time. "Like what you did that first day in Mohinder's apartment? When you came with the boogeym-- with Sylar?"

Maya nodded sadly. "Exactly. I killed many people without meaning to, and I only want it to end."

Unsure what to say, Molly simply threw her arms around Maya's waist and hugged her. After a moment she said, "It'll be okay. Mohinder can fix it." Maya sincerely hoped so, for the world's sake. With this curse in her, she was dangerous.

_New Orleans_

_The Past_

"One more thing," Hiro said. "Before we go, we have a message for you- save the cheerleader, save the world."

Niki raised her eyebrows. "Um... what?"

Ando looked askance at Hiro. "Isn't that done with, already?"

Hiro shook his head. "In one week, Sylar will attack the cheerleader in her home in California. You must protect her."

"You mean... are you talking about Claire Bennet?"

The time-traveler nodded, grinning widely. "The cheerleader, yes! Come Ando, we must go and find her cure!" He seized his friend by the arm, and disappeared with a pop. Niki glanced at her son and niece, and shrugged.

_Somewhere in Ohio_

_The Present_

Mohinder pulled into the gas station and parked the rented Buick at the side of the building. He went into the store, intent on buying something highly caffeinated so that he could drive through the night. It was imperative that he reach Odessa as quickly as possible, if the situation there was to be contained... As he was reaching for a lid to put on the cup of coffee he had filled, there was a sudden pop of air behind him.

"Doctor Suresh!" said an excited voice.

The professor jumped, splashing hot coffee across his hands. He swore under his breath, whirling around. "Who--? Hiro?" he said in astonishment.

Hiro smiled. "We need your help, Doctor Suresh. We have saved Niki from being killed, and we need the cure for her disease. It is important."

Mohinder opened and closed his mouth several times. "Niki... yes. Of course. Hiro, I had the cure, and I was on my way to give it to her, but I was... intercepted. Sylar took it from me and I assume he used it to restore his own powers."

"Yes," Ando said sadly. "He attacked Claire Bennet two days ago."

Mohinder closed his eyes, a horrified expression crossing his face. "Damn it," he muttered. "Hiro, the only cure for the virus Niki's infected with is a combination of my blood and Claire's blood. If there were any way for me to get more of her blood, maybe I could make another batch, but without it..."

The time-traveler grinned. "But we can get more blood for you!" he exclaimed. "We will find the cheerleader and get it for you, if you promise to make another cure for Niki."

"Alright," Mohinder said, sudden hope that he hadn't failed in his responsibility to the young mother blooming within him. "I have some of my equipment out in the car. Just let me buy my coffee and I can get you a syringe..."

--

**Well, that was really all. Just a couple of scenes I didn't have room to squeeze onto the end of the last chapter. Official notice: I'm going to be on vacation for the whole month of July, and although I'll have access to a laptop, I'm gonna be too busy enjoying California (YEAH!!!!!) to write much, so don't expect many updates as of July 1st. **


	11. Glass Houses part one

**A Note From Lara: Alright. I had a really productive writing day last Wednesday, but thanks to my internet being down AGAIN, I couldn't post anything. So there are a whole bunch of things to be posted over the last couple days. Hooray. I guess. I don't know if I already mentioned it, but I'll be gone for most of July and probably won't get a lot of time to post stuff. I might be able to write one or two chapters MAYBE. Just a heads up, so you don't freak out and think I died or something because there are no updates until the end of July.**

--

_Odessa_

Peter ran a hand through his hair, glaring across the gymnasium at where Mason was talking Dr. Hardburn, the doctor in charge of triage at the secondary hospital that had been set up here. He didn't listen in on their conversation, but as he watched them, he could see the doctor's expression growing more and more stony. Peter couldn't imagine that Mason knew how to manage a hospital better than Hardburn. He sighed in irritation. In the six hours since Mason had arrived, he had rubbed nearly everyone the wrong way, and Peter wished he would just leave so he could go back to handling this.

On the one hand, he was actually relieved to have the burden suddenly lifted from his shoulders and placed on someone else's; he wasn't a natural leader. That was Nathan's job.

But at the same time, he knew the responsibility hadn't actually left him. It was his fault that any of this had happened, and it was his job to fix it. So he would let Mason handle the small jobs and the day-to-day problems of managing a terrified, sickened city, and he would work on finding a way to reverse the disease. Not that he was likely to. He wasn't a virologist or a geneticist...

A geneticist. Mohinder! Of course. Mohinder would know what to do. Now if he just knew how to get in contact with him--

"Are you _insane_!?" someone yelled. Peter glanced up to see Parkman advancing on Mason. "This town is already one wrong word away from a full-out riot! Are you seriously stupid enough to think that--"

The telepath didn't get another word out before Peter leapt across the room- sprinting unnervingly fast for someone who, to the rest of the world, was absolutely ordinary- and stepped between him and Mason. "Parkman, calm down," Peter said firmly. "We're in a hospital. These people are sick, they don't need us upsetting them with our arguing. You want to yell at him? Go somewhere where you won't be scaring the infected half to death." Parkman and Mason glared at him, but acquiesced, and the three of them, plus Dr. Hardburn moved their discussion to the hallway outside of the gymnasium.

"Alright," Peter said, glancing at Parkman. "What's the problem here?"

Parkman glared at Mason. "He wants to impose a curfew," he said angrily. "And he wants to have everyone tested for the virus every other day, and anyone who turns up infected will have to be quarantined."

Slowly, Peter shook his head. "It makes sense, Matt. I don't like the idea much either, but it does make sense..."

"No it doesn't!" Parkman yelled. "This town is on edge as it is! Everyone is terrified, and setting up armed patrols and imposing a curfew and marching everyone through the hospital every other day isn't going to make anyone feel better! And besides- do you know how many people are in Odessa? With the number of doctors in this city, it would take days to get everyone tested, and nothing else would be tended to. All the people who are already infected will _die_!"

Peter bit his lip. Mason had a point... but so did Parkman. Neglecting the sick to needlessly disrupt the healthy wasn't logical. "He has a point," he said to Mason. "Maybe for now you should just stick with how we've been running things until you get more of a feel for the situation."

Mason shook his head, smiling. "No, I think we'll follow my idea. After all, I don't suppose a hospice nurse and a traffic cop would really understand how to handle an emergency like this one," he said condescendingly. Parkman turned scarlet with fury, and Peter himself was hard-put to keep from losing control. He felt a familiar tingle of radiation just beneath his skin, and forced himself to think about other things. Now was not the time for a nuclear meltdown on top of everything else.

Smirking, Mason ambled down the hall toward the front doors of the school. Hardburn, who had been silent throughout the whole exchange, glanced at Peter. "Please tell me he gets under your skin, too."

Peter nodded sadly. "Normally I can put up with just about everything," he said resignedly, "but he's so... confrontational. I'm about _this_ close to a meltdown." Parkman glanced at him sharply, reading the warning in Peter's words. Peter met his eyes and shrugged. "The guy just ticks me off," he said.

_Petrelli Mansion_

_New York_

_She walked slowly down the corridors of Primatech. As she turned a corner, she saw the shattered bodies of Matt Parkman and Hiro Nakamura lying on the floor. Nathan lay sprawled half-through a broken window, and Mohinder Suresh was twitching on the ground beneath him, impaled by several shards of glass. More bodies, more familiar faces, lay scattered around the hallway, and she realized that a great battle must have taken place here not so long ago._

_A sense of dread crept up her spine as she approached the final turn in the familiar hallway. Unable to halt her progress, she stepped around the corner. A dark-skinned man held Peter pinned to the ground, beating him around the head with unnatural strength, and her empathic son was clearly losing this fight. A man with flaming blue hands held a panic-stricken Hispanic woman at bay in a corner. Elle Bishop assisted him, repeatedly shocking the woman so that she couldn't concentrate to access her ability._

_On the right side of the hall, Sylar held her granddaughter against the wall by the throat, raising his other hand to open up her skull. As he made the first cut, Claire screamed. On the other side of the corridor, a woman with spiky blonde hair sat rocking back and forth with her arms wrapped around her legs and here forehead on her knees. A taller blonde stood next to her, arms folded, glaring down at her._

_All at once, another woman- the exact double of the blonde who guarded the sobbing woman- ran almost in slow motion past her, headed for Sylar._

_A hand clamped itself over her mouth. "Remember me?" whispered a voice in her ear._

"_Adam!"_

Angela sat up with a shout, clutching at her mouth where Adam Monroe's hand had crept over her face. She stared wildly around her bedroom, realizing what the dream must mean. "Oh no," she whispered.

Throwing back the covers, she ran barefoot downstairs, seizing on the secure phone line in her late husband's office. Hurriedly she dialed a number she hadn't called in years. It was time for her to take action once again. Adam Monroe had to be found and stopped before her dream came true. He _had_ to be.

_Somewhere in New Mexico_

Claire spotted the pair of men at the side of the road, and pulled over with a sigh. "Hiro?" she asked. "Ando? What are you doing here? I thought you were off to fight Sylar or something."

Hiro nodded solemnly. "I tried to stop him, but I failed. His new... friend... is too powerful."

"What new friend?" Lyle asked curiously.

"The electric girl."

Claire groaned. "Elle. I should've known. Is she teamed up with Sylar now?"

"Who's Sylar?" West asked from the back seat. "Who are these guys? What's going on?" Claire shot him a _shut up_ glare and didn't answer, instead turning back to Hiro.

"We have someone to help us stop him now, but her abilities have been taken away by a dangerous sickness. We need your blood to help cure her," Ando said. "Will you give us some?"

Claire shrugged. "Sure, whatever. Do you have a needle?" Grinning, Hiro produced the desired item from his coat pocket. Claire took it and plunged it into her arm, producing a vial full of dark blood. "Will this be enough?" she asked.

The time-traveler nodded. "Thank you, Cheerleader!" He and Ando disappeared with a pop.

West stared at the place where they'd been. "Friends of yours?" he asked faintly, looking blindsided.

Claire nodded. "Yeah. Sorta. Actually they're more friends of Peter's, but they were involved in some stuff that happened last November, and... well, like I said. It's complicated." West looked like he wanted to ask more, but Lyle gave him a death glare, just daring him to say another word, and he fell silent. Claire was grateful. This whole situation was just so absurd, she felt that if she had to try and explain it, she would break down either laughing or crying- she didn't know which yet.

--

Claire heaved a sigh of relief when she spotted the sign that read "Welcome to Texas." The familiar golden-brown desert was surrounding her again, so much more comfortable than vibrant Costa Verde or bustling New York. "Just a few more hours," she said, unable to keep from smiling. "We have to get across the Panhandle, then we head south. And then..." She trailed away.

"Then?" Lyle prompted. "Do you actually know what we're going to do once we get to Odessa, or are you just being stupid?"

She ground her teeth to keep from strangling him. "No," she said. "I... I have a plan."

"Care to share it with the rest of us?" her brother asked irritably. She shook her head, because quite frankly she had no idea what she was going to do when they arrived. But apparently denial wasn't what Lyle was expecting. Face red- from anger this time, not sunburn- he shouted, "Oh, so you're just going to put us in danger without giving us any clue what's going to happen so we can prepare ourselves? That's great, Claire, that's real great. You know, you might be able to get away with that shit at home because you're Dad's favorite, because you're the one with the fancy power--"

"Lyle," she said placatingly, but he overrode her.

"--But I'm not gonna put up with that when it's my life on the line, Claire! I know it was my idea to come, but I'm starting to think you have no idea what you're doing! Isn't that right?" She was silent. "Isn't it?" he shouted again, his voice rising and his hands balling into fists.

"I--" she began, but fell silent.

Lyle narrowed his eyes. "Claire, why do you have to be like that? Everybody expects you to be the heroine of the story and save everybody, but you don't have a clue, do you? You act like stuff just happens to you, and you whine about everything! Why can't you just buck up and _do something_?" He slammed his fist against the dashboard, and the car skidded violently as a burst of blue appeared around his hand.

Claire screamed as the car careened wildly across the highway. She slammed on the brakes, steering into the skid as best she could. A whoosh of air told her that West had launched himself out of the backseat out of the oncoming wreck. She stared with wild eyes at her brother. He looked back, shock and terror written all over his face. And then the car slid off the road and rolled down a steep embankment, throwing both Claire and Lyle from their seats. The world went dark.

When Claire regained consciousness, she found herself impaled on a sharp bit of metal that used to be part of the convertible's front door. Pulling herself off and wiping the blood from her mouth, she staggered up the embankment to where West was skidding to a landing in the gravel next to Lyle. Wait... Lyle?

"Lyle, how did you survive?" she asked, coughing from the dust.

He shrugged, looking shell-shocked. West answered for him. "He... did something. I dunno what, but when he was about to hit the ground he threw out his hands and there was this flash of blue and then he was going the other direction."

She stared at the blonde teenager who was currently making a close examination of his sneakers. "Lyle," Claire asked slowly, "Do you have a power?"

--

**Ooh, suspense! And is it just me or is Claire a really bad driver? I seem to be getting her into all kinds of skids in this fic. At least now the car's totalled so they don't have to worry about it anymore. Review, please!**


	12. Glass Houses part two

**A Note From Lara: Alright. I'm having a huge flood of inspiration for all my stories, so hopefully over the next few weeks you'll see a lot of updates on ALL my fics- hell, maybe I'll even get back to some of those Smallville stories I abandoned when I discovered the amazingness that is Heroes. So, just a heads-up. Expect lots from me for the rest of the month and the early part of August. (After that, Calculus takes precedence over FF. At least, my parents THINK it will... *evil grin*)**

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_Micah and Monica_

_New Orleans_

"What're we gonna do?" Monica whispered. They had been held captive here in the abandoned home for almost 24 hours, and the standoff with the local police didn't show any sign of being over soon. They were currently locked in a back room of the house, along with a sniffling young girl whose myriad braids were beginning to unravel from several days of neglect. Although they had been left untied, one of the gangbangers stood guard at the door threatening them with a switchblade that had to be four inches long.

Micah shrugged. "We'll think of something," he said confidently. "Or Mom will rescue us."

Monica looked at him doubtfully. "Micah, they've got guns!" she hissed. "How will she even get close enough?"

"Correction," the ten-year-old said smugly. "They've got _a_ gun. One. Didn't you notice? The rest of them only have knives. They've been using the gun to bluff the police into thinking they can kill us all in seconds if they try anything. But they just keep passing it off to whoever's most visible."

"Wow," the vigilante said quietly. "You really are a smart kid, you know that? What else did you notice?"

Micah smiled. "I was listening to their conversation earlier. This isn't just a random kidnapping. She's the daughter of the leader of a rival gang." He pointed at the crying girl. "They were going to use her for leverage. A couple of them are really upset about this whole mess, because now they're surrounded with no way out. Maybe we can use that, somehow."

Monica shook her head. "It's a regular _West Side Story_, huh," she said. Turning to the little girl, she said, "We're gonna get out of here, okay? I'll find a way."

The girl looked up. Her dark eyes were red with crying, but she wiped away the tears still lingering on her cheeks and gave them a tentative smile. "You promise?" she asked. Micah grinned at the younger girl and nodded. Her smile grew more confident, but she seemed unwilling to talk much.

"Is there anything you can _do_ that might be able to get us out of here?" Micah asked significantly.

She bit her lip. "There might be something. I went through all the martial arts stuff on that iPod. But unless I can somehow take them all out before whichever one has the gun shoots me, all that does is get _me_ out."

"But that would help!" Micah exclaimed. "Mon, no one knows we're here! As far as everyone else knows, it's just _her_ in here. But if you can get out, you could go get Mom! She can get us out."

"I can't leave you here alone!"

"Yes, you can. You _have_ to! And I won't be alone- she'll be here."

She paced the room indecisively. Micah and the little girl watched her intently, but finally she nodded. "Okay. I don't like this, though. Are you sure you couldn't... I don't know, hang onto my back or something? That way, maybe I could get both of us out." Micah shook his head and made a "go" gesture to her. She glared at him, but rose to her feet.

Monica approached the door, and the thug with the switchblade tried to push her back inside. "Look, man, I gotta pee," she said. "Please. Hasn't this house got a toilet or something?" He rolled his eyes and stepped out of her way, pointing to a door down the hall. Monica hurried to the bathroom... and broke into a dead run, hurtling down the hallway. The thug yelled out and immediately two more men appeared to block her path. With a well-placed flying kick, Monica knocked one unconscious. The other lunged at him, but she was too quick for him, ducking under his wildly swinging arm to launch herself up to a high window and out onto the back lawn of the house. Micah watched through the thick glass as she sprinted across the lawn, heading in the direction of their house on the other side of town.

He hoped she would hurry.

_Angela and Kimiko Nakamura_

_Cemetery Outside Tokyo, Japan_

"I do not understand," the young CEO said in flawless, if formal, English. "I was aware that you and my father were acquainted, but why have you come all this way to pay your respects?"

Angela smiled grimly. "Miss Nakamura, I must confess, my motives in coming here were not so entirely... noble." She paused, then sighed. "You are aware of the events that took place last November?"

Kimiko nodded. "My brother's close friend, Ando Masahashi, informed me. But he did not know what it came to. Although, as New York is still standing, I make the assumption that Hiro was successful in his quest. But that does not explain what you are doing here, Mrs. Petrelli."

Without answering Kimiko's implied question, Angela pressed on. "Then you are aware of the abilities certain individuals are developing, your brother among them?" When Kimiko confirmed this, she nodded sadly. "Some people use their abilities for good. And some use them for evil. I have reason to believe that such a man lies somewhere in this cemetery. I need your help, Kimiko. We must dig up a grave."

"If you mean to say that my father was--!"

"No. Of course not. Kaito Nakamura was a good man. I mean another man. I dreamed that he would be here. His name is Adam Monroe, and he may destroy us all," Angela said.

After a long moment, Kimiko nodded. "What do you need me to do?"

_Peter and Parkman_

_Odessa_

"That guy just gets under my skin!" Parkman seethed, pacing the small patch of open floor space in their hotel room. "I mean, I'm not exactly an expert on situations like this, but I know enough about how peoples minds work to know that when he imposes a curfew, all the disaster movies they ever saw are gonna come to the front of their minds and this place will be a mad house!"

"I know," Peter sighed. "I know." He stared at his hands, which were resting on his knees.

After a few more moments of furious pacing, Parkman suddenly stopped and stared at him. "What's wrong?"

Without looking up, Peter shrugged and muttered, "Nothing."

Parkman shook his head. "No. Something's wrong. What is it?"

Peter glared at him. "Why don't you just_ read my mind_ and find out?" he demanded hotly. "That's what you do with everybody else, right? Invade their privacy without their permission? Force them to do whatever you want?"

The sometimes-cop stared at him. "What's gotten into you, Peter? This isn't like you. And for your information, I can't read your mind, okay? I can get a sense of what's going on in there. Feel a little bit about your dominant emotion and stuff like that. But I can't do more than that. Maybe it's because of your ability, but it's like putting a microphone up against a speaker. Gives me a killer headache."

The empath shrugged apathetically. "Sorry," he muttered.

"For the headaches or for yelling at me?"

"Both, I guess."

Parkman let it drop at that. It wasn't worth pushing it. But he made a resolution to watch Peter closely over the next few days, to try and decipher the cause of his misery. Whatever it was that was bothering him, it was making him listless and irritable. And that was the last thing their situation needed right now. It was bad enough that their natural leader was out of commission. Odessa would turn into a war zone if things degenerated any further, and Peter was more or less the only one who could stop it if it came to that.

_Claire, Lyle, and West_

_North Texas_

"Lyle, do you have a power?"

The other Bennet child drew circles in the dirt with his toes, avoiding his sister's eyes. But he did mumble a reply that Claire couldn't actually hear. "What?" she asked.

After a long moment, he looked up to meet her eyes. "It started about a week ago," he finally said. "At first I didn't really notice anything was wrong, but then the incidents started getting bigger and I realized what was happening."

"Why didn't you tell anybody?" Claire demanded.

Lyle shrugged. "I didn't want Dad to know. After you started healing, he got all ridiculously overprotective and you started arguing all the time. I don't need the hassle."

Claire stared at him. "But you could have told _me_!" she said. "If anybody gets it, it's me."

He shook his head. "No way! You didn't tell me. Why should I tell you?" She glared at him, but he met her eyes and glared right back. Finally, she dropped her gaze with a sigh.

"Alright then. What is it? I know you're dying to tell me... _now_."

He grinned. "I can manipulate inertia."

"What the hell does that mean?" West demanded.

He glowered at him. "I'm coming to it, Flyboy!" West looked suitably chastised and Lyle turned back to his sister. "I can create inertia in an object and make it move. That only works in a straight line, though. And I can accelerate things that are already moving--"

"Like you did with the car when you hit the dashboard," West commented. The Bennet siblings turned in unison to glare at him. "Okay! I get it! Shutting up."

"And I can deflect things by manipulating the inertia they already have to take them a different direction."

Claire nodded slowly. "And that's how you survived the crash?"

"Yep. I was gonna land on my face, so I just..." He broke off and glanced at the wreck. "Sorry about the car. Guess that's going to cost a lot to fix." He gave her a sheepish, don't-kill-me grin.

She shrugged. "It's on Dad's credit card. The one from work, you know? Let the Company pick up the bill."

"E-e-e-excellent..." Lyle said, pulling a spot-on imitation of Mr. Burns, complete with steepled fingers.

West sighed. "Okay. Am I allowed to talk now?" When no one put up any immediate objections, he continued. "Great. That's good. That's awesome, man. Your power is really cool. Have I covered it all? Okay. Then how about we remember what we're supposed to be doing and get moving?"

"How?" Claire demanded. "We don't have a car."

"Um... I can _fly_?" he said irritably.

She nodded. "Right. Yeah."

Lyle crossed his arms. "And what about the rest of us?"

"Oh. Right," Claire said. "You can only carry one at a time."

"Wait, you can carry someone?" Lyle asked. West nodded. "Oh. Well that solves the problem. You carry Claire, and I'll run."

"Run?" Claire asked.

He shrugged. "Sure. I can just amp up my inertia and travel like six times as fast with every step. I think I can do that. Don't know how long I'll be able to keep it up, but hopefully we can get halfway there before tonight. Maybe farther, if we're lucky and I'm better at this than I probably will be."

And without another word, he took off. At first he was running at a normal human pace, but on the fourth step, there was a flash of blue and his next step carried him a full three yards. The blue light flashed again and he accelerated even more, taking great leaps across the ground, almost appearing to teleport from one step to the next as he jittered off down the dusty highway.

"Well, shall we catch up?" West said in a suggestive voice that seemed to indicate he wanted to do a bit of making out while they were in the air.

Hiding her disgust, Claire allowed him to lift her into his arms, and they took off. As they ascended, she mused on her own turnaround of feelings toward him. Sure, West was a nice enough guy. But she was fairly sure that what had attracted her to him in the first place was his resemblance Peter. At the time, she had missed her hero so fiercely, she hadn't been able to bear it. Was it any surprise she had latched herself onto the first person she came across who looked like him?

The wind blew through her hair and she smiled. One thing she _would_ miss about being with West was this- the flying. It was unlike anything else she'd ever experienced. She was so distracted by the exhilaration of being in the air, she didn't notice the shift in West's arms around her as he brought her closer to him. She didn't even notice it when he brought his lips so close to hers that, were it not for the wind, she would have felt his breath against her skin...

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**Another Note From Lara: Well, none of my stories have been getting the usual number of reviews lately. Welcome To Real Life (which I highly recommend to anyone who likes my writing), which normally brings in a HUGE flood of reviews, got barely any on the last chapter. So let's see if you can break the vicious cycle, huh? I review EVERY chapter of EVERY story I ever read. Can you say the same?**


	13. Glass Houses part three

**A Note From Lara: Alright, I'm finally getting back to this. Oneshots and other stories ate my brain. But I got back around to it.**

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_Claire and West_

_Somewhere Above Texas_

She didn't notice as he leaned in toward her, but Claire certainly noticed when he pressed his lips against hers in a passionate- if slightly sideways- kiss.

"West!" she exclaimed, jerking back so quickly that he lost his grip on her and she tumbled a few hundred yards down to the ground. She crumpled to a heap a little ways in front of the speeding Lyle.

"Oh my god! Claire!" West screamed, diving down to a skidding landing next to her. "Are you okay?"

She clambered to her feet, snapping her femur back into alignment. "I'm always okay," she muttered at him. "I can heal, remember?" He put his hands on her shoulders, trying to peer into her face to make sure she really was okay, but she jerked away again. "What the hell was that?" she demanded. He didn't respond, and she scoffed. "What did you think was gonna happen? You could just kiss me in midair and everything would go back to the way it was? Is that it?" She hardly noticed when Lyle tactfully slipped away to catch his breath a little way down the road.

"Look, I just... I miss you, Claire. You're the first person I ever met who understood what it's like to... to be different."

Claire snorted. "So you like me for my power? Look, West, it's never going to work with us, okay?"

He didn't look convinced. "No, that's not it! I don't like you for y- I like you for _you_! You're smart, even if you are trying to hide it, and you're insanely brave and you... Look, things have been pretty crazy lately. Electric girls and Companies and people coming back from the dead, and we've both been under a lot of stress. We've both said some things- I know I have- that I regret. But... I'll try harder to understand... what it's like for you. We can figure us out. It'll be good."

She suddenly knew that he wasn't going to give up unless she pulled out the truth- or part of it, anyway. She smiled sadly at him. "West, you like me because I'm "special," and that's okay. I don't mind. Because... well, I never really liked you for who you are, either."

He had been leaning towards her, his hand on her arm. But suddenly he was much farther away, his hands glued to his sides again. His eyes shut down. "What are you talking about?"

Claire sighed. "I know it wasn't fair to you but... well, you look like someone I know. Somebody I care about a whole lot. But I can't be with him for... well, a lot of reasons. And when I met you- you look kind of like him, and you can fly like he does, and I guess I just tried to pretend that you were him."

West looked suddenly like he was going to cry. He squared his shoulders and looked away from her, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. "I'll take you as far as Odessa," he said. "I owe you that. But then I'm going back to Costa Verde."

She felt like a prize bitch. West was just trying to be helpful. It wasn't his fault that she had a ginormous crush on her uncle, and here she'd gone and broken his heart. "I'm sorry," she said softly.

He shook his head. "So am I."

Then he picked her up again and carried her into the sky. Lyle spotted them soaring away, and took off after them.

_Dawson Home_

_New Orleans_

"Niki!" Monica screamed, bursting in the front door. The blonde came rushing out of the bedroom, the look of tentative relief on her face collapsing as she realized that Micah wasn't with her.

She seized her niece in a grip Monica was sure she didn't mean to be so tight. "Where's Micah?" Niki demanded. "You two have been gone since last night. Nana and I have been terrified. Where is he, Monica?"

Struggling both to free herself from her aunt's grip and to catch her breath, Monica gasped out, "Have you heard about the hostage situation? Up on Greenfield?"

Niki's face registered terror. "You didn't!"

The muscle mimic shook her head. "Micah talked me into it. I told him it was a bad idea, but... Look, he's trapped in there still. I was able to get out to get help, but I can't take them all out on my own. Did the cure those Japanese guys brought you work? Are you strong again?"

She nodded. "I did what they said. I saved the cheerleader girl. Now _where is he_?"

"It's really only a dozen blocks away," Monica said, still a little breathless. "Together, I think we can stop them. But we gotta hurry. Those people.... they're crazy. Come on!"

Niki grabbed the keys to the car Micah had altered and practically flew out the door, panic written all over her beautiful face. She dropped into the driver's seat and Monica threw herself in through the passenger's side door. "Go!" she screamed. The blonde didn't even bother to wait for Monica to pull the door all the way closed, but skidded wildly out of the driveway.

--

Not even five minutes later, they were skidding up to the back side of the house where the standoff was taking place. Niki pushed her door open and moved quietly up to the back door, Monica just inches behind her. She eased open the door, peering around the corner. "No one's there," she said. She and her niece slipped inside, but when Niki released the door, its springs pulled it to with a bang.

A heavyset man wearing a hoodie came running into the hall at the noise, brandishing a switchblade and yelling almost incomprehensibly. Two younger men careened into view after him. "What the hell are you doin' here, bitch?" the first man demanded.

Niki grimaced and glanced at Monica. "Stay behind me," she said, just as the three men pounded down the hallway to plow into her...

_Odessa_

The curfew notices had gone up just a few hours ago. It took a few hours for the flyers Mason's soldiers had stapled to every telephone pole and bulletin board in town to catch the notice of Odessa's citizens. But now, as the evening shadows were beginning to lengthen across the dusty Texas town, little clusters of people had started to gather around the places where the notices were posted. Gradually, the small groups grew together and began to move steadily toward the center of town.

Within half an hour, a large crowd had gathered in front of City Hall. Peter and Matt stared out of a second-story window, watching the agitated group nervously.

"They're not happy," Parkman said quietly.

Peter nodded sadly. "Not much we can do about it," he said, sounding apathetic.

"Except talk to them," Parkman pointed out. "This town is a giant powder keg and Mason's playing with fire. We need to go out there and talk to them. Explain that we're going to try to find a way to beat this thing. If we don't..." He swiped a hand across his sweaty forehead.

"If we don't, Mason will," Peter said. "Or rather, he already is." He pointed.

Matt glanced down and swore under his breath. "What's he doing?"

Peter shrugged. "I assume making things infinitely more difficult to fix. That's all he's really done so far."

Roger Drey approached them. "I'm not one to question the wisdom of the federal government," he said, "but I'm inclined to agree with you. James Mason is, frankly, a jackass." Matt chuckled a little weakly. "I trust the two of you implicitly," the mayor said. "My town is suddenly the center of an epidemic of global proportions, and my administration is completely unprepared to deal with it. You two, though... well, this may sound a little far-fetched, but I just have this _feeling_ that you could save us. It's just a feeling, of course. Nothing concrete. But call it intuition. You've seen things, haven't you? Done things."

The two men glanced at each other, slightly overwhelmed. "Uh... something like that," Peter said. "Nothing as interesting as you seem to think, but... more or less." Matt could only manage a nod.

"So... do you have a plan?" Roger asked.

Peter glanced at Matt, but the older man seemed to be in a distracted daze and didn't meet his eyes. Looked like it was up to him. Great. Just what he needed- the fate of the world resting on his shoulders... again. "Well," he said slowly, "nothing concrete, but I think I might know someone who can help. There's this geneticist, he does some really cutting-edge research. He's not a virologist or anything, but Matt tells me he's been doing some research about the Shanti virus. Maybe he can, I don't know, give us some recommendations. It's not much, but it's all I can think to do right now."

Roger smiled bitterly. "Thank you, Peter. That is something. What's this geneticist's name?"

"Mohinder Suresh. Last I heard, he was living in Brooklyn."

After the mayor had hurried down the hallway to make some phone calls, Peter returned to looking out the window, and was suddenly deeply concerned by what he saw. Several particularly agitated members of the crowd were advancing on Mason, shaking their fists and making threatening motions. When he peered into their minds, he felt their rage and desperation and terror, and understood what they were planning. "Oh no," he said.

"What's up?" Matt asked, and suddenly he was the one sounding apathetic.

Peter shook his head. "They're angry, Parkman. It's just like you said- it's a powder keg. And whatever he said down there, Mason's lit a fuse, and it's all about to blow up in his face. We've got to help him! They're gonna kill him for sure if this gets out of hand."

Matt hesitated. "What can we do?" he asked.

"Can't you... like... whammy them or something? Make them stop?" Peter asked, his voice growing tense as he spied one man throwing a punch at Mason.

"Nope," Matt mumbled. "Can't control that many people at once. And even if I stopped one or two of them, there'd still be five more waiting to do it."

The empath groaned in frustration. "Dammit," he hissed. He hesitated a second more, but three more men had joined the first ganging up on Mason. A large group of Mason's soldiers had jumped into the fray, and the entire crowd was rapidly spinning out of control and turning into one mass riot. Peter took a second to wonder how things had gotten so out of hand so quickly, and then he jumped out the window in a burst of shattering glass.

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**I can tell you right now that this is going to be a long, hard haul to the end. I'm starting to feel the beginnings of writer's block. And this would have been a difficult story to push through anyway. So I'm going to really need all your fabulous help and support if I'm going to keep on updating this. Just bear with me, and we'll wrap this thing up in about five or six more episodes, 'kay?**


	14. Glass Houses part four

**A Note From Lara:** Well, here we go. I was so tempted to update Shimmerforce or the Dianne Saga, or anything but this, really. But I HAVE to finish Exodus, just so I can have it out of the way and move on to bigger and better things. Let me just tell you, I understand why the writers tag-team it. Trying to write an entire volume of Heroes without backup is HARD. **On a different note**, the scene with Claire and Lyle takes place about four hours after the scene with Peter, and the scene with Niki and Micah is the morning after that. The intervening time WILL be covered in future chapters. Sorry everything so out of sync, but... well... Heroes isn't known for it's logical timeline.

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_Niki_

_New Orleans_

It was just ink on paper, Niki tried to tell herself. Just ink, just a headline in a newspaper. Nothing important.

But she couldn't help but smile as she read the words printed large and bold above a report of yesterday afternoon's events. **Police-Kidnapper Standoff Comes to Mysterious Ending.** The police still had no idea how the eight gang-members had suddenly been knocked unconscious, allowing the little girl whose name, it transpired, was Eve, to be brought out of the house. There was no mention of a muscle mimic or a technopath. And there was no mention of a super-strong ex-stripper/assassin.

Niki had never felt like this before. There was this warm glow in her chest as she thought about it now. She had possibly saved a little girl's life. Was this how it felt... to be a hero?

"Mom?"

Micah stood in the doorway of the kitchen in his pajamas. She smiled brightly at him. "Morning, baby," she said.

He shuffled his feet uncomfortably. "Mom, I'm sorry about yesterday," he said. "Please don't be mad at Monica. She wanted to come home, but I talked her into doing one more thing, and we got in over our heads."

Niki rose from her chair and hurried over to him. "Micah, it's okay," she said. "I think I understand now."

"Understand what?"

"Why it's so important to you, being a hero." She knelt in front of him so that they were on eye-level. "Ever since this started, I've been trying to find a way to fight it and keep whatever piece of a life we had. Only, I don't think that's the point."

Micah smiled. "No. It's not."

"You and Monica, you were so brave yesterday, and you weren't even there for yourselves at all. I want to be more like that."

"It's not about us," Micah said. "It's about everyone else. Your boyfriend could tell you that."

Niki stared at him. "My--? Micah, what are you talking about?" she asked sharply.

He shrugged. "Nathan," he said. "Peter's older brother, the one who saved us on Kirby Plaza that night. Those two sacrificed themselves to save the world. And Mom? You should probably know... I was looking some stuff up on my computer this morning, and something happened to Nathan. That disease you had broke out in Texas. I didn't have time to read the whole report, but it's really serious."

Micah's hopeful eyes told her all she needed to know. "Micah, there's nothing we can do," she said. "I can fight petty criminals, but I can't cure viruses all on my own. Let's just stick with our own pr--"

The sound of a knock on the screen door interrupted her words. A glance at the clock on the wall told Niki that it was way too early for anyone to visit for social reasons. Who could possibly be calling this early? With a confused look at Micah, she rose to her feet.

"Coming," she called.

And when Niki pulled the door open, she saw... _herself_.

_Peter_

_Odessa_

The sound of glass exploding outward brought some of the rioters below to their senses, but not nearly enough of them. The soldiers and the townspeople were still fighting, and those who paused to look upward to see the source of the sound were quickly pulled back into the fray. One red-faced man, the one who had started the fight in the first place by punching Mason, kicked an officer between the legs, and the man went to the ground, only to be trampled over by the thrashing mob.

Only those people who were on the edge of the struggle realized what was happening when they saw that the glass of the window had stopped falling in midair. More importantly, the man who had broken the glass out in the first place had stopped falling. Instead he hovered in midair, surveying the scene below him for a moment before he acted.

"Stop!" Peter called out. The sound of his voice had only a minimal effect, as a few people paused to stare up at him in shock. He reached as far back in his memory as he could, and discovered one half-forgotten power he had picked up ages ago and never used. "Stop it, all of you!" he screamed. This time, his voice was infused with the power Eden McCain had loaned him, an eerie double resonance lending it volume and clarity enough to cut through the howling din and the shouts of the soldiers.

Silence fell instantaneously as his command took effect, forcing every person in the mob, citizen and soldier alike, to fall silent and desist in their attempts to kill each other. A sea of faces turned up to Peter, and he suddenly realized that this had been a very, very bad idea.

_Claire and Lyle_

_Outside of Odessa_

Once they had come in sight of Odessa, West had left them. Now it was just brother and sister, walking out of the yellow and brown Texas scrubland and into the valley that surrounded the town. The sun was setting behind the low hills to the west, and the bloody light tinged the pair of blonde heads with rose and copper.

Lyle was the first to realize that a barbed-wire fence ran around the entire town. He pointed it out to her, and she nodded, too lost in her own thoughts to respond verbally. With some kind of silent accord, they walked along the barrier until they reached a place where the fence ran past a low, steep hill. Together, the siblings climbed the mound and crept along the back of it until they reached the crest.

They peered over the top and through the links of the fence. Every two hundred yards or so, a guard could be seen patrolling back and forth. The message was clear: No one was getting out, and no one was getting in.

"So... what now?" Claire asked.


	15. The Mirror Has Two Faces part one

**A Note From Lara:** Ack. I am having SO much trouble with this one. I really am. But I'm hoping to get it wrapped up soon. Two or three more "chapters" after The Mirror Has Two Faces. Speaking of which, if the title of this episode makes you squeal about Barbra Streisand in your review, you get double-bonus points and a smiley face in the review reply.

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_A Bar in Tokyo_

"You look like hell," the bartender said to the well-dressed but mud-stained man sitting at the end of the bar downing one gin-and-tonic after another.

The ruffled blonde snorted. "Been through it. Had two insane broads chasing me across a cemetery," he muttered. Then he glanced up at the bartender. "Listen, friend, you wouldn't happen to know where I can find a Miss Kenryoku, would you? I have a job opportunity for her."

The bartender stiffened. It was the covert signal given by those looking to hire Specials for under-the-table transactions in this particular watering hole. "Yeah," he said carefully. "I know where to find her. How long will you be in town?" Translated as: sure, I can find someone for you. How many people will you need?

"As long as need be."

The barkeep suddenly felt a tingle of apprehension. This man was indicating that he had the inclination and resources to employ as many Specials as he wanted. That either made him extremely foolhardy or extremely dangerous... and to have survived in this underworld long enough to know this code, he was betting on the latter. "Alrighty then," he answered nervously. "I'll let her know and arrange a meeting. Who should I tell her is calling?"

Ordinarily, the response would have been a code indicating the time and place for a more open meeting to discuss specific job requirements. The blonde man, however, looked up from his drink to meet the bartender's eyes with his own steely green ones. "My name is Adam Monroe," he said. "And I need to see every Special you can contact."

_Odessa_

_Twenty-Four Hours Later_

"Excuse me, Sir," a young soldier said, approaching Mason.

The commanding officer, sporting a black eye and a swollen lip as a result of the mob's attentions last night, turned to face him. "What is it, Davis?"

"There's been an... incident, Sir."

"What sort of incident?" Mason barked. His already black mood would not tolerate any waffling or avoidance on the part of his underlings. It had been a hellish day as it was, with the continued unrest within the civilian population of Odessa.

The young officer sighed. "I'd rather not say, Sir."

"And why is that?"

"I'm afraid you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Mason rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. "Trust me, kid, after yesterday, I'll believe just about anything. Flying men and mind control... the world's gone completely insane."

"Very much so, Sir. If it's alright with you, Sir, you could maybe just view it on the tapes? The cameras we had mounted on the perimeter caught the whole thing. The quality of the feedd pretty poor, but I think you'll get the idea if you watch that?"

Too exhausted by the unnatural events of the day, Mason had little choice but to agree. The young man lead him to a small interview room in the Odessa police station where Mason's men had set up their necessary technological equipment. He typed a few lines on a keyboard and opened a video file.

Mason leaned forward to scrutinize the slightly pixellated images skittering across the screen. A blonde girl climbed up the high fence that surrounded the perimeter, with a younger blonde teenager right behind her. The girl lay across the barbed wire, apparently unaffected by the sharp metal biting through her flesh, while the boy used her body as a kind of bridge across the dangerous wire. He dropped to the ground, far too slowly and landing far too lightly for it to be a natural fall. The girl dropped down much less gracefully a few seconds after him, lurching sideways and apparently hurting her ankle in the process. But maybe he had been wrong, because within moments she was back upright again and walking normally.

The two darted in a scuttling crouch in the general direction of Odessa but before they had gone more than a few yards, the perimeter patrol came into view. Though the video feed had no audio, Mason could guess from the raised megaphone that a warning had been issued... and ignored. A few seconds more, and the soldiers opened fire. The girl went down immediately, blood spraying from a wound in her chest. The boy, on the other hand, stepped protectively in front of her prone form, hands raised in a seemingly useless gesture. But as more bullets fired in his direction, they suddenly veered off harmlessly into the desert with unexplained flashes of blue light trailing after them.

All at once the girl dragged herself to her feet again, spitting a mouthful of blood on the ground, but clearly standing too straight to have been shot only moments before. Wounded people instinctively curled themselves around their injury- they didn't stand proud and glare defiantly at the soldiers before grabbing the free hand of their companion and dragging them away into the desert. But that was exactly what the girl did.

Further bullets did no good, because the boy's hand stretched out behind them deflected or in some cases halted them before they could reach the fleeing pair. "What the hell?" Mason exclaimed, leaping to his feet as the video ended. "What was that?"

The younger officer shrugged sadly. "We picked them up on the surveillance cameras when they were coming over the perimeter fence. I was leading the team sent to apprehend them, Sir. I can tell you, we hit the girl, dead center of the chest. There's no way she could have survived."

"Except that she did."

"Except that she did. She stood up and spit out the bullet. And as for the boy... I don't even know _what_ to think about him." The young man hesitated, then said, "Sir, if you'll permit me to ask, what the hell is going on here?"

Mason ran a hand through his thinning hair. "I have absolutely no idea, son. But I want you to get a team on finding that pair. If they were able to get in, others might, and we can't risk anyone else getting infected with this damn virus." The other man nodded sharply, saluted, and hurried away.

With a sigh, Mason sank back into the chair. These... these _people_, with their powers and special abilities... they were dangerous. He was too clever a man to deny that they would be useful, if carefully controlled. But how did you control someone who could do _anything_? As of right now, he couldn't think of anything beyond heavy sedation... which was exactly what he was doing right now to keep Petrelli under control. He didn't know the full extent of Peter's capabilities, but as his actions at the riot yesterday had proved, he could control people's actions and that made him Public Enemy Number One, as far as Mason was concerned.

What was the world coming to, if one man had the power of a god? Well, he decided, no good could come of it. The world was just fine the way it was. There were good guys and there were bad guys and there were the morally gray individuals- such as himself- who made sure the good stayed in the dark and the bad went to hell. Throwing these powers in the mix would only complicate a very neat system. Someone had to put a stop to it...

_Niki Sanders_

_The Dawson Home; New Orleans_

Niki stared at the mirror image of herself staring at her from the other side of the screen door. A thousand thoughts, a thousand emotions rushed through her head. Her world was just starting to settle into some kind of rhythm. A strange rhythm, complete with a genius son who talked to machines and a niece who had become a local vigilante, but it still felt comfortable. Somehow, she didn't think that this stranger with her face was going to help that.

"I... Who--?" she stuttered. Then she pushed the screen out of the way. "Come in," she sighed.

On second examination, the other woman wasn't quite as identical as she had at first seemed. Oh, certainly the face was the same, right down to the last tiny detail. But her gold hair fell in a shimmering, pin-straight curtain past her shoulders, and spoke of long hours of expensive care that Niki had never had the money or time to give to her appearance. And she was dressed in a lavish suit, deep blue and immaculate.

Yes, immaculate was the word to describe her. Next to this cosseted, perfected version of herself, Niki suddenly felt dowdy with her loosely curling locks and her typical tank-top-and-jeans attire.

The stranger spoke first. "Hello," she said. "I understand that this is all very... unexpected. But I'm sure you've already realized why I'm here. My name is Tracy Strauss."

"Tracy," Niki said, rolling the word slowly off her tongue as if tasting it. Then she extended a hand as politely as she knew how. "I'm--"

"Nicole Sanders, I know," Tracy said, somewhat impatiently. "I found you, remember?"

Niki nodded. "Call me Niki," she said. "And... um... how did you find me?"

Tracy sighed. "It's a long story. Would it be alright if we sat down?" Niki nodded hurriedly, trying to accommodate this brusque woman as best she could. It was the only way she could keep herself from staring openly and becoming tongue-tied from her air of sophistication. Niki wasn't exactly a stranger to high-class atmospheres (hadn't her experience with Nathan proved that?), but there was a feeling of cold civility that radiated from Tracy that instantly put her ill at ease.

This was going to be very, very uncomfortable.


End file.
